Flashback: Revisiting Scottie Scheffler’s 2013 U.S. Jr Amateur victory

Scottie Scheffler’s win at the Dell Match Play yesterday, and resultant ascension to the #1 spot in men’s professional golf, inspired me to revisit the column I wrote a little under nine years ago*, when Scottie capped his junior golf career with a victory in the 2013 USGA U.S. Junior Amateur Championship at Martis Camp, in Truckee, California:

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Recreational golf is a leisurely activity – a little too leisurely, the way some people play it – but competitive golf has an inherent intensity which the calm exterior aspect of the game belies, and nowhere is that more aptly demonstrated than in the USGA’s national championship tournaments. Two national championships were contested this past week, July 22 to 27 – the U.S. Junior Amateur at Martis Camp Club, in Truckee, and the U.S. Girls Junior, at Sycamore Hills Golf Club, in Fort Wayne, Indiana – and the action in the championship match in the Junior Amateur provided an apt demonstration of the level of intensity that accompanies a national championship.

The players in the final match at a USGA national championship tournament will have played nine 18-hole rounds of competitive golf in six days by the time all is said and done, and seven of those rounds are intense, one-on-one, match play. It is a measure of the caliber of the competition that the 36-hole championship matches play out so close, often coming down to the last few holes before a winner is decided.

Two accomplished junior golfers played their way through the selection process to face off in the championship match at the Junior Amateur: Scottie Scheffler, of Dallas, Texas, 3rd seed after stroke play, and Davis Riley, of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who was T-4 at the conclusion of stroke play.

After playing 36 holes of stroke play and five rounds of match play, the two finalists were faced with 36 holes of match play, in a single day, to determine the 2013 national champion.

The young Mississippian, Riley, took the lead on the first hole with a par to Scheffler’s double-bogey, and appeared set to hold onto it until the finish. By the time the match got to the seventh hole Riley had built his lead to three holes with steady pars. Scheffler turned the tide briefly at Holes 7 and 8, making his own pars while Riley slipped back to 1-up with a pair of bogeys.

Riley led Scheffler for the remainder of the first round, moving back and forth between 1-up and 2-up a time or two, but never relinquishing the lead.

Starting the second eighteen after the lunch break, the two players came out of the blocks pretty evenly matched, each posting pars for the first four holes. Scheffler, 17, who is playing in his last Junior Amateur before he ages out of eligibility, squared the match with a chip-in birdie on the fifth hole, a 486-yard par-4, but went 1-down again at the sixth, another par-4, with a bogey. Riley, who has verbally committed to Alabama for his college golf, held onto the lead for a further seven holes, then a small error on his part – which may have resulted from a subtle, but shrewd, tactical move by Scheffler, turned the momentum of the match in his opponent’s favor.

Both players carried their approaches hole high and just slightly off the back of the green at the 31st hole of the match, but in good position to get to the back-right hole location. Scheffler who was away, chipped to tap-in range and was given the putt. Riley, who was closer to the flag but with a marginally less-favorable lie, chipped to a decent position below the flag, but about half-again the distance from the hole that Scheffler’s ball had been. The ball was marginally within concession range, but Scheffler made no move to concede the putt, and Riley, possibly taken aback slightly by this, pushed the putt, lipping out for a bogey-5, giving up the lead for only the second time in the match.

“Yeah it was [a momentum swing],” Riley said about the missed par putt on the 13th hole. “I felt like I still could have won [the match]. I was playing really well, my ball-striking was really good.”

At the 32nd hole, the 159-yard par-three 14th, Scheffler’s tee shot landed just right of and below the flag, bouncing forward and rolling to the collar of the green, pin high. It was a bold shot, attacking a flag which was was tucked well back and right, and a risk that could have backfired on him.

Teeing off next, Riley fired a shot which was also on the flag like a laser, but landed and stopped several feet short, failing to release and roll up closer to the hole.

Watching from the tee box as his ball tracked to the hole location like a heat-seeking missile, Riley twirled his club as he let it slide thorough his grasp, looking like a man who was watching a perfect shot perform just as he had expected it to. When the ball came up short, the victim of geometry, after hitting into the slight upslope below the hole, he was visibly upset, and slammed his clubhead into the turf as he walked to the hole.

Scheffler’s ball was in a good lie, despite its position up against the collar of rough around the green. The grass behind the ball was just thin enough to give him a good shot at the back of the ball, and he rolled in the eight-footer for a birdie to take his first, and very timely, lead of the match with little drama.

Scheffler won the next hole, the par-five 15th, with his third birdie of the inward nine, knocking a 250-yard shot onto the green with a hybrid club and two-putting for the birdie – and was now two up with three to play.

The match ended on somewhat of a down note on the par-four 16th hole as a result of Riley calling an infraction on himself as he prepared to putt from just off the green. He said that his ball moved slightly after he addressed it, which resulted in a one-stroke penalty, and a bogey to Scheffler’s par, giving the Texan the win 3-and-2.

The victory may seem anticlimactic, but Scheffler’s late rally showed his mental toughness, as he came back from nearly thirty straight holes of trailing his opponent.

“I played pretty well down the stretch,” Scheffler said afterwards. “In the morning round, I gave away a lot of shots and I struggled with the putting a little bit early, then I started to figure it out.”

“You have to be mentally tough. I mean, you have to make putts. You need to perform.”

                              

* (Originally posted on the now-defunct Examiner.com website.)

Big names not missed as AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am comes to an exciting climax

The absence of most of the PGA Tour’s big names this week didn’t take away from the excitement of professional golf’s most scenic tournament, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

With the likes of Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson—both multiple winners of this event—and many others opting to take Saudi blood money just for showing up at the Saudi International, it was left to Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay, Beau Hossler and a host of less recognizable names to bring the excitement from the Monterey Peninsula.

First-round leader Tom Hoge book-ended his tournament in the best fashion possible, facing down a surging Jordan Spieth to hoist his first trophy on the PGA Tour, bank a cool $1.5M, lock up two years’ worth of eligibility, and earn invites to the Masters and the Open Championship.

As many as five players were tied for first place mid-round as the likes of Patrick Cantlay, Troy Merritt, Beau Hossler and Jordan Spieth made moves early to mid-round.

Merritt was as low as seven-under after a birdie at the par-five 14th hole, even after a bogey at #8, but a double bogey at the par-three 17th killed his chances for a meaningful look at a win.

Cantlay came into the final round 65-68-68–201, 14-under and T-4, one stroke back of third-round co-leaders Tom Hoge, Beau Hossler, and Andrew Putnam. Strong iron play but poor putting stymied a move up the leaderboard by the SoCal pro, and a pair of late bogeys sealed his fate; a birdie on 18 boosted him into a share of fourth place alongside Troy Merritt.

First-round co-leader Beau Hossler stuttered early with a bogey on the par-five second hole and a bunker-to-fringe-to-three-putt adventure at the par-3 fifth hole. This usually relatively benign one-shotter played more difficult today as a new tee box, to the right of the usual position, was put into use for the first time. Birdies at 9, 10, and 11, and later at 17, buoyed his chances at a run for the win, but he still came to 18 needing an eagle to force a playoff. His last chance was a hole-out from the right-hand greenside bunker, which didn’t happen, and three putts later he had slipped from possible contender to solo third place.

Jordan Spieth was the hopeful story of the round for most of the day. Starting the final round 11 strokes out of first place, he marched ahead as the first-round leaders slipped back. His hopeful fans held their breath as he came to the 8th hole, where he danced with death at the edge of the cliff yesterday, his ball actually beyond the red line at the precipice. They clung to hope as he birdied 12 and 13 to take the solo lead; his birdie at the notoriously tough par-three 12th was only the second of the day.

Meanwhile, another first-round co-leader, TCU grad Tom Hoge, was struggling to an even-par front nine after a double-bogey on #5 and a bogey from the rough above the green on #8. Known as a player who doesn’t give up late in the game, Hoge righted the ship with birdies at 11 and 14, and pulled up on Spieth with another, at #16.

Now it was Spieth’s turn to stumble in the stretch. A slightly mishit 8-iron off the tee at #17 landed short, leaving him with a mediocre lie in the yawning front bunker. Not known for his excellent sand play in recent years, Spieth blasted out to five feet above the hole and missed the crucial par putt, handing the lead to Hoge, one hole behind him on the course.

More woes attended for Jordan Spieth on the 18th hole. His tee shot came to rest to the right of the strategically placed cypress tree mid-fairway, and a slight mis-hit off a bare lie resulted in a plugged lie in the seawall fairway bunker. Another poor shot left him short of the green, over 50 feet from the flag—long story short: chip short, par putt, solo second.

Hoge, in the mean time, played conservatively down the famously scenic fairway that curves around the blue expanse of Carmel Bay, getting to the green in a regulation three shots and taking two putts to get to the hole from 37 feet. It took Hossler’s botched run at the 18th hole (described above) to clinch the win for Hoge, but there was little doubt of the outcome once Hossler’s second shot landed in the greenside bunker.

In the final equation, it was two Texans and a man from North Dakota who went to school in Texas who provided the drama in the final round of the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am; three names that ranged in rank from well-known to “Oh, yeah—him,” to “Who?”, and nobody really missed the guys who bailed on one of the most historic, and certainly the most scenic, events on the PGA tour.

Power fades, Hossler hustles, and Spieth makes a giant leap on Saturday at the AT&T Pro-Am

In your run-of-the-mill PGA Tour event, Friday is Cut Day, when players have to play their way into the weekend, and Saturday is Moving Day, when the lucky 60+ who survived to play for a paycheck are playing to attain, or hold, a position close to the top of the leaderboard and be poised for a run at a high finish. As it is in so many ways, the Pebble Beach Pro-Am is exceptional in this regard. Played on three courses—Pebble Beach Golf Links, Spyglass Hill, and the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula Golf Club—this tournament cycles the players through all three courses, with the cut coming on Saturday, after 54 holes of play.

This unique configuration turns Saturday into a combination of “moving day” and “cut day”. This unique circumstance becomes even more significant when, as has happened this week, the 36-hole leader rides a record-tying five-stroke lead into the weekend.

Ireland’s Séamus Power opened his run at an AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am title on Thursday with a noteworthy bogey-free eight-under 64 at Spyglass Hill, which is acknowledged to be the toughest of the three courses in the tournament rota. Rotating to Pebble Beach on Friday, Power kept the pedal down, and with two bogeys against ten birdies, carded a second eight-under 64 to set a new 36-hole scoring record of 128.

The new record is one stroke better than the previous record of 129, jointly held by Nick Taylor (2020) and Phil Mickelson (2005)—each of whom went on to win.

Power’s pursuers got the help they needed as the firm and fast MPCC course kept a lid on the Irishman’s game. Beau Hossler, Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, and Andrew Putnam playing at Pebble, and Tom Hoge, at Spyglass, all made moves to close the gap.

Hossler, who led the 2012 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club briefly in the third round as an amateur, caught up to Power in the latter part of their respective rounds. The Texan traded off between co-leading and trailing by one over a run of several holes before Power sputtered to a 3-over 74 on the Shore Course, eventually falling to T-7, while Hossler ascended to a tie for the lead with Andrew Putnam and first-round leader Tom Hoge. Hossler carded a 7-under 65 on five birdies and an eagle, on the par-five 6th hole.

A few groups behind Hossler, Patrick Cantlay endured a string of pars and one bogey, at 15, on the back nine before a 22-foot putt at the 17th hole yielded a timely birdie and gave his game a boost that had been missing to that point. He followed it with a birdie at 18 after getting on in two with driver–3-wood, cementing a 4-under round and -14 for 54 holes, good enough for T-4 going into the final round.

The biggest move on the day was made by the 2017 Pro-Am champ Jordan Spieth, who rode a run of sterling iron play to a 9-under 63, lifting him to 14-under for the tournament and into a three-way tie for 4th going into the final round.

Cantlay and Spieth were joined at T-4 by Joel Dahmen, who posted a sneaky-good six-under 66 at Spyglass Hill to join Cantlay and Spieth in the three-way tie for fourth.

NorCal notables who made the field include 2021 runner-up Maverick McNealy; Nick Watney, who squeaked in with 4-under, T-65 finish*; Austin Smotherman, who opened 65-68 in the first two rounds and sputtered to a 3-over 75 at Spyglass today, and former San José State golfer Mark Hubbard, who stitched a light-running 7-under 65 on MPCC Shore for an 8-under T-21 placement going into the final round.

Sunday promises to be a long day on the course, with 77 pros in the field*. Interestingly, the fate of the twelve other players who were tied with Sahith Theegala at 4-under lay in his hands when he got to the 18th hole. If he birdied the final hole to move to 5-under and solo 65th, the dozen at 4-under would fall to the wrong side of the cut line; par or worse and they are all playing for a paycheck tomorrow.

Theegala placed his third shot in the back fringe, 28-1/2 feet from the hole, and then missed that birdie putt. There are twelve guys in the field tomorrow* who owe Theegala a steak dinner.

* (Late update – Given the size of the field, and the presence of amateurs, the PGA Tour invoked the MDF rule—so just the top 64 pros are playing on Sunday. It would have been very difficult to get a finish in before dark, otherwise.)

Friday is a Power-play day at the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

At the end of the first round of play at the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Fargo, North Dakota native Tom Hoge stood atop the leaderboard after posting a 9-under 63 at Pebble Beach Golf Links—but as anyone who is familiar with this tournament knows, not all rounds are created equal here in the Del Monte Forest.

It is generally acknowledged that of the three courses in the tournament rota—Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, and the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula Golf Club—Spyglass Hill, with its more severe elevation changes and coastline to forest routing, is the toughest test of golf, with Pebble and the Shore Course trading off second and third depending upon the strength and severity of the wind.

That being the case, it was generally acknowledged among the cognoscenti that Hoge’s Friday 63 at Pebble, under clear skies and in calm conditions, had to take a back seat to the 8-under 64 put up by Irishman Séamus Power at Spyglass Hill in the first round. Starting on the tenth hole, Power opened with a 3-under 33 for nine holes, opened the front nine with another birdie and caught another gear toward the end of hit round, dropping a string of birdies in the last four holes to close out the round in style.

Teeing off at #1 at Pebble Beach on Friday morning, Power kept his foot down, coming out of the gate with another 3-under 33 on the home course’s front nine, with birdies at the second, sixth, seventh, and ninth holes, marred only by a three-put bogey at #5.

The momentum from his birdie at the intimidating par-4 ninth, the centerpiece of the three-hole string of cliff-top par fours—eight, nine, and ten—that sportswriter Dan Jenkins dubbed “Abalone Corner”, carried over to the next three holes as the course turned inland. Birdies on both of the back nine’s par-fives, 14 and 18, and the par-four 16th hole, rolled back by a tough bogey from a green-side bunker on the par-three 17th, brought Power home in 31, for back-to-back 64s, 16-under for the tournament, and a new 36-hole tournament scoring record of 128.

The previous holders of the 36-hole scoring record of 129, Nick Taylor (2020) and Phil Mickelson (2005), each went on to win the tournament.

Meanwhile, a mile or two or three down the 17-Mile Drive, first-round leader Hoge was slipping off the pace a bit with a two-under 69 at the par-71 Shore Course that dropped him to second, five strokes back of Power at 11 under, after 36 holes. Andrew Putnam, who posted a 6-under 65 on the Shore Course in the first round, carded a 5-under 67 at Spyglass Hill and moved up into a tie with Hoge for second; they were joined by Canadian Adam Svensson who followed a first-round 69 at Pebble with a blistering 8-under 63 at the Shore Course.

Power’s five-stroke lead after 36 holes ties another record; former Cal golfer Charlie Wi held a five-stroke lead after 36 holes in 2012—only to lose to Phil Mickelson, and Bob Rosburg held a five-stroke lead after 36 holes in 1958, but lost to Billy Casper (Rosburg would go on to win the Pro-Am in 1961.)

A five-stroke lead is nothing to sneeze at going into the third round, but there are some players not so far behind that are capable of putting up a low score late to pounce on any potential missteps that might be made by Power, Hoge, Putnam, or Svensson. Patrick Cantlay put up a second-round 68 at Spyglass to wrap up 36 holes at 10-under, T-5, while a resurgent Jason Day followed up Thursday’s 4-under 68 at Pebble with a 5-under 66 at the Shore Course and is currently seven strokes back—but with the tougher test of Spyglass Hill to come on Saturday.

Something to consider for a look ahead to Saturday’s round is the fact that Power, who seems to be thriving under the benign conditions that have prevailed so far, and which should continue through the weekend, will be playing the easier of the three courses, MPCC’s Shore Course, while his closest competitors, Hoge and Putnam, will be at Spyglass Hill and Pebble Beach, respectively.

That’s something to look forward to for Saturday/cut day at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Thursday at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am: Who are those guys?

It’s a recurring theme at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am: the first round goes into the books on Thursday evening, and the universal reaction to the name at the top of the leaderboard is “Who?”

Mind you, I’m not talking about the fans walking back to their shuttle buses at the end of the day, or the punters propping up the bar at the 19th Hole—I’m talking about in the media center, where some of the finest minds writing about golf today are gathered to ponder, pontificate, and promulgate their wisdom via the various forms of media, social and otherwise.

This phenomenon has been known to extend through Friday and Saturday, and even persist to the final round—who can forget Vaughn Taylor in 2016; or maybe the ultimate “Who dat?” winner, Ted Potter, Jr., the Orlando Mini-tour King, in 2018? (Potter’s win is even more remarkable when you consider the group that tied for second behind him, which included Jason Day, and multiple Pebble Beach champions Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson.)

This year’s first-round leaderboard treated fans and the media to such well-known names as Knous, Hoge, Putnam, Malnati, Lipsky, and Eckroat. You can be forgiven for thinking that this lineup sounds more like a firm of auto-accident lawyers that advertise on local cable than the top of the leaderboard at a prestigious PGA Tour event.

To be fair, the absence of most of the biggest names in PGA tour golf has left the venerable Del Monte Forest beach bash awash in lesser-known players, so the odds are good that this year’s winner could be someone with a low recognition factor.

A veritable who’s-who of men’s professional golf, most of whom could have been reliably counted upon to be in the field here at Pebble Beach, decamped to Saudi Arabia to play for a smaller purse ($5M vs $8.7M) but big appearance fees (reportedly larger, in some cases, than the winner’s share here at Pebble Beach).

The list includes five-time Pebble Beach winner Phil Mickelson; two-time winner Dustin Johnson; Graeme McDowell, the winner of the 2010 U.S. Open, held here at Pebble Beach; and sundry other golf luminaries and recognizable names such as Bryson DeChambeau, Tony Finau, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Ian Poulter, Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed, and several more.

The biggest names in the field this week at the Clambake are Jordan Spieth, who is among the stable of players affiliated with presenting sponsor AT&T; #3-ranked Patrick Cantlay, a California kid (if SoCal…) who acknowledged, but resisted, the temptation of Saudi gelt and came to Pebble Beach this week because he loves the place; Maverick McNealy, local boy and Stanford Men’s golf star who grew up in a house on Pebble’s 16th fairway before his family moved to Hillsborough; and former World #1 Jason Day, who showed some long-missing form at the Farmer’s Insurance Open at Torrey Pines last week before fading over the closing holes of the final round.

There is an old saying that goes: “The race doesn’t always go to the swift, nor the battle to the strong—but that’s the way to bet”, so the chances are good that one of the four names I mentioned in the preceding paragraph will top the leaderboard come Sunday evening. The odds are even better that, even if none of them do top the field, one or more of them will be in the hunt on Sunday, and will end up in the Top 5 after 72 holes are played.

As far as Round One went, an 11-year pro from North Dakota by way of Texas Christian University (“Go Frogs!”) named Tom Hoge (pronounced “hoagie”, like the sandwich) topped the leaderboard after 18 holes.

Starting on the tenth hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links under clear skies in a dead calm, Hoge opened with birdies at 10 and 11, carded another at 18, and went on a six-hole birdie run on holes 3 through 8 after pars at 1 and 2. His clean-card 9-under 63 is one off of the tournament course record of 62 that is jointly held by Dave Kite (1983 – win), David Duval (1997 – runner-up), and was most recently equaled by Patrick Cantlay in last year ’s first round.

Hoge is trailed by Irishman Seamus Power, who carded an 8-under 64 at Spyglass Hill, and NorCal’s own Austin Smotherman, a native of Loomis, CA, a small town straddling Hwy 80 just east of Sacramento, who carded a 7-under 65 at Pebble Beach, more than offsetting a pair of bogeys with eagles at the par-5 sixth and eighteenth holes. Swede Jonas Blixt, who played at Spyglass Hill today, is tied with Smotherman at 7-under.

Patrick Cantlay is the highest-place of the bigger names in the field, T-5 at 6-under after his opening round at Spyglass Hill; Jason Day is T-14, 3-under at Pebble Beach; Jordan Spieth sits at T-31 after a 3-under round at MPCC, and Maverick McNealy is T-51 with a 2-under round, also at MPCC.

Offshore Flow defeats Crosby Weather at the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

The phrase “Crosby Weather” has traditionally been the shortcut term for the wild & woolly weather conditions that players and spectators are called upon to endure during the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am; it is so endemic that even non-golfers in the local area use it to describe stormy weather in January and February.

Some of the most famous examples of “Crosby Weather” include the 1962 snow storm that delayed the tournament by a day (prompting Jimmy Demaret, the 1952 champion, to quip “I know I got loaded last night, but how did I end up in Squaw Valley?”); the heavy rain in 1998 that shortened the tournament to 54 holes, persisting over the weekend to the extent that the final round was delayed six months, finally being played on August 17th; and the brief but heavy hailstorm on tournament Sunday in 2019 that carpeted the putting greens with white pellets, resulting in a two-hour delay that pushed the event to a Monday finish[*].

The forecast for the week of the
2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is
uncharacteristic for the time of year.

This year, however, in keeping with the new world order that seems to be affecting all aspects of life on planet Earth in 2022, the new two-word buzzphrase for the weather at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is “offshore flow”. High pressure over the inland areas of the western United States is causing winds that blow from the interior to the coast, northeast to southwest; the air compresses as it descends to lower elevations and, as you know if you were paying attention in your high school science class, warms up as a result.

The forecast for what we locals still call “Crosby Week” is for mostly clear and sunny, if somewhat chilly, conditions. The winds will generally be calm at the low, coastal elevations where the three courses in the tournament rota are located, so we are likely to see some low scoring this year.

We are also seeing the return of spectators and amateur playing partners to the event after their absence in 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions, and the third course in the rota, Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course, which sat out last year due to the reduced field size.

As much as some PGA Tour pros, and some golf pundits, don’t like the pro-am format of this event, the presence of celebrity golfers and even the deep-pockets non-celebrity amateurs in the field is a unique and very special factor in the success of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and we are very happy to see things getting back to something like normal.

Except for the weather, which is going to be spectacular.

[*] Five-time AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am winner Phil Mickelson seems to thrive on delayed finishes at this event; the 1998 and 2019 tournaments were his first and fifth wins at Pebble Beach.

A calm assessment of the threat Assembly Bill 672 poses to municipal golf in California

Assembly Bill 672, the brainchild of California State Assembly member Cristina Garcia (D–Bell Gardens), poses a threat to municipal golf in California; that is, public golf courses that are owned by cities or counties—but how big a threat? Some responses to the proposed legislation have verged on the hysterical, but I think that a closer look at the wording of the bill, and a wider evaluation of the situation, is called for.

What would it do?

This much is true: the gist of the bill’s intent is to incentivize local agencies (city and county governments) to close down municipal golf courses and convert them to sites for housing. The bill’s text specifies that 25% of the housing is to be “affordable to, and occupied by” low-income households (as defined by the Health and Safety Code), and that 15% of the development is to be publicly accessible open space—but with this twist-of-the-knife proviso: space used as a golf course shall not be considered open space.

Some of the response to AB 672 have been needlessly reactionary; for example, this Golfweekheadline: “Could all California golf courses be converted to housing? A new bill proposes just that”, and a post on the Uken Report website that predicts that local muni courses in the Palm Springs area would be turned into homeless camps should this legislation be passed. The fact that these extreme takes aren’t realistic doesn’t mean that there is no cause for concern.

The Legislative Counsel’s Digest (a summary, of sorts, of the bill’s effect) on the AB 672 page on the California Legislative information website gives the following assessment of the bill in its current form: “This bill would, upon appropriation by the Legislature, require the [Department of Housing and Community Development] to administer a program to provide incentives in the form of grants to local agencies that enter into a development agreement to convert a golf course owned by the local agency into housing and publicly accessible open space, as specified.”

Not exactly a smoking gun, but slightly worrisome even in its vagueness.

Changes over time

The bill, which was originally introduced in February 2021, has been amended four times, and while some of the revisions have weakened the bill’s proposed directives, changes which make it less radical also increase its palatability and may boost its chances of passing.

For example: the March 18th, 2021 version of the bill would have removed protection for municipal golf courses under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a radical and unquestionably anti-environment move, but one which would have greatly simplified the process of converting what had been protected green space to residential uses. This provision was removed in the next amended version of the bill for the very simple reason (as I am informed by my wife, a career land-use/urban planner) that it is not possible to simply exclude a development project from CEQA. Can’t be done.

The next version, amended in Assembly on April 6th, 2021, would have required city, county, or city and county entities to rezone municipally owned golf courses to allow residential or open-space uses. The word “require” carries weight, making this version of the bill more worrisome, but again, the wording of the bill was amended in committee, and this proviso was removed.

(Also removed from the verbiage of the bill was a reference to the terms of the legislation being applied to “under-utilized” golf courses, but if you have tried to get a good tee-time any time in the last 12–15 months, you know that there is no such thing as an under-utilized golf course in California these days.)

Too clever by half?

Ms Garcia is making what I am sure she and her staff consider to be a clever two-pronged attack with this bill. First, proposing a solution (of sorts) to a problem which everyone acknowledges—the shortage of affordable housing in California, especially in the urban centers—but a solution which will only affect people who play golf; and second, making a show of being progressive and populist by attacking golf, which everyone knows is a terrible elitist game that is only played by ROWMs (Rich Old White Men), thus gaining favor among know-nothing would-be do-gooders who would willingly trade golf-course space for “affordable” housing.

Careful examination of the text of the bill shows that everything about it, from the early, more openly antagonistic versions to the current relatively toothless version, reeks of uninformed antagonism and borderline incompetence on the part of Ms Garcia and her staff.

The since-removed CEQA proviso should never have seen the light of day, and the requirement that local agencies rezone municipally owned golf courses is the kind of over-the-top direct action that will always raise flags in proposed legislation—these versions demonstrate, to an experienced reviewer, that neither Ms Garcia or her staff are really on the ball.

The other aspect of the bill: the singling out of golf courses, among all possible land uses, is redolent of the kind of misguided populist-elite thinking à la Malcolm Gladwell that informs attacks on golf as an elitist game for rich white men.

Ill-conceived – but still worrisome

While the likelihood of this bill being passed, and thus having a measurable impact on the availability of municipal golf in California, is low, the embracing of this clichéd antagonism toward the game of golf is still worrisome.

Even in its current, weaker, form, AB 672 represents an attack on the game of golf because it still singles out golf courses for this “incentive program”. No other open-space use is cited—not soccer fields, not baseball or softball diamonds, not dog parks, not playgrounds. Golf courses, and only golf courses, are mentioned by the bill. The current version of the bill is vague in its wording, and virtually toothless, but it is worth the attention of the golf community to keep an eye on AB 672, because it represents a potential “thin end of the wedge”. 

A hair-shirt take that only a Pope could love

A recent post on the Lying Four golf-blog site posits the bill as a call to action for the game of golf:

“This episode should be a learning opportunity for golf—a chance to rededicate itself to changing its elitist practices (and, in turn, the reputation), if only out of the self-interest that the California bill exposes.”

The post on Lying Four also mentions that passage of AB 672 would unfairly target one segment of the golf-playing population (and by far the largest), making them pay (potentially) for the sins of the other, which is true—but goes on to say that golf, as a game, must:

“…[resist] the temptation that elites often indulge: to shut themselves away behind strong walls, and to assume therein their safety.

The California bill shows that tendency’s fallacy: the public is at the walls. We can either invite them in, or wait for them to tear down the walls on their terms.”

While it looks more realistically at the governmental aspects of AB 672 than many of the articles and analyses posted over the eleven months since the bill was introduced, the Lying Four column presents something of an hysterical response in itself, assuming that the people and organizations that comprise “the game of golf” are going to adopt the same elitist attitude that is assumed to be universal in golf by people who support actions such as that which AB 672 proposes. The column’s author doesn’t give any examples of ways in which “golf” can push back against the elitist stereotyping of the game, so the article is less of a call to action than it is a strident scolding that is waiting to be turned into an “I-told-you-so”.

In my opinion, the author of the Lying Four column is assuming something of a “mea culpa” attitude, and while golf, as a sport, must have a care as to the way the non-golf-playing public perceives it, supporting existing education campaigns by industry organizations is a better way to do this than the sanctimonious finger-wagging and hand-wringing approach that this column presents.

The Bottom Line

I don’t see AB 672, in its current state, having much chance of passing. It is a grandstand play by Assemblymember Cristina Garcia, but one which was ill-conceived and, so far, incompetently executed.

But… despite its weaknesses, AB 672 represents a calculated attack on an industry that employs 128,000 people in the state of California, representing a total economic output of some $6.3 billion in 2021, and $4.1 billion in wages, while providing a healthful outdoor exercise experience that has been shown to have a positive effect on longevity and general well-being.

The golf industry must remain vigilant in the face of attacks of this kind, fighting back with facts, not hysteria, about the economic, health, and environmental benefits of the game of golf—which have positive effects up and down the economic spectrum—and stave off the ill-informed haters and opportunistic politicians who would restrict, or at worst, shut down, the game we love.