More Greenery In The Scenery
San Diego is blessed with ideal golf weather and many beautiful golf courses, but with the increasing popularity of the game and a growing population base, golfers are having to look harder and plan earlier to find a tee time. Torrey Pines looked wonderful on network television in February as Tiger Woods demolished a very difficult South course, but for the average hacker, getting a tee time at Torrey may be even a greater challenge. With land costs high and environmental hurdles even higher, it is difficult to bring new courses on stream in San Diego. Encinitas Ranch is a recent addition, but very few public access courses have been built in San Diego in the last 10 years. The good news is that two championship courses are well under way, and another is in the development phase. Tony Allison has been writing about the business of sports for five years. Golf remains both a passion and an eternal mystery.
golf courses are in the works
Poway's entry is Maderas Country Club on Old Coach Road. "It will be a private club, but daily fee access will be available for a few years as membership builds," says Art Noehren, project manager for developer Sunroad Enterprises. The golf course, a codesign by Johnny Miller and Robert Muir Graves, is part of an enclave of 68 high-end building lots. "It will be a championship-caliber course, 7,100 yards from the back tees," says Noehren. "We will also have five sets of tees on every hole." Maderas Country Club already is taking shape. The grass is scheduled to be planted soon, with the course on track to open in October or November.
The Meadows Del Mar Golf Club, a resort course formerly known as Bougainvillea, is located in southern Carmel Valley on 400 acres of farmland tucked between jutting coastal foothills. The 7,000 yard course was designed by world-renowned golf architect Tom Fazio and figures to be a significant addition to San Diego’s links landscape. As a prime example of how hard it is to create and build a new coastal course in San Diego, The Meadows Del Mar took more than nine years to develop and ultimately had to be approved by San Diego voters as Proposition C. The original $10 million purchase price ballooned to $23 million before the first fairway was cut.
The project also will include 134 half-acre lots and an upscale resort hotel. Kathy Bryant, vice president of marketing for Western Golf Properties, says the course is scheduled to open this August, and the daily fee will be in the "Aviara range" of $95 to $125. The entire course will be sodded this spring to accelerate the completion process. If you've ever sodded your yard, imagine what that will cost!
"Carlsbad's golf course is still in the planning stages," says John Cahill, municipal projects manager for the city of Carlsbad. "We don’t have a construction schedule established yet." The city is developing the project, and has selected Billy Casper and Greg Nash as the course architects. Carlsbad hired Raven Golf out of Scottsdale as the course operator. "We will likely begin later this year," says Cahill, "so we are a couple of years away from opening." The as yet unnamed course will be on 250 acres between the Palomar Airport and Legoland.
These highly anticipated additions to the San Diego golfing community may not thin out the golfing hordes at Torrey Pines, but they should provide some cool new places to go tee it up.
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