Harding Park in SF

[Evan_Green]

I have heard the following regarding Harding Park Muni in SF. It will be closed for 13 months. The Arnold Palmer Co. will refurbish the course (they operate the Presidio course in SF as well. Apparently they wont tinker with the routing, but will make a few changes and improve the conditioning.

Bottom of the line is harding park is one of the better muni layouts in the US and if its in good shape it will be great- i think Doak gave it a 5 before restoration saying "(if) restored- it would easily be the third best course in the Bay Area." That says a lot.

[Kevin_Reilly]

I don't think the Palmer company has anything to do with Harding any more.

They are spending $15 million on the remodel, so I would expect more changes than you noted.  But then again, this is San Francisco....

Regarding Doak's quote...it might be true that a refurbished Harding could be considered by some the 3rd best course in the Bay Area, but I'll disagree with you that this says a lot.  I don't think there are that many good courses in the Bay Area proper.  There is a big drop off after the first two.

[Nick_Ficorelli]

Just how good is Harding Park..or how good can it be? I believe there are rumbling of a tour event.

[John_D._Bernhardt]

Please bay area guys step in. The Cal Club and several others are top level clubs that deserve more than passing comment.

[Kevin_Reilly]

Yes John, I think that the guys out at Harding will have to do a lot with that $15 million to put Harding ahead of Cal Club.  Probably the most underrated (maybe becasue of the low-profile nature of the club) course in the Bay Area.

[Kevin_Reilly]

Bill, I can't follow your post so maybe we're both confused.

Anyway, my point was that they'd have to spend the $15M very well to make Harding a better course than Cal Club. I don't see that happening.  Agree?

Also, I said that Cal Club was very low profile.  Agree?

[BV]

Bill, I can't follow your post so maybe we're both confused.

1-Anyway, my point was that they'd have to spend the $15M very well to make Harding a better course than Cal Club. I don't see that happening.  Agree?

2-Also, I said that Cal Club was very low profile.  Agree?

1-Yes  I thought that you were saying the opposite.  I must have been tired. I think there are three and then a drop off.

2-Yes.  Here I was making a stooopid joke..   Harding is a pancake and pretty mundane in my opinion.  But it does have fog, cypress trees......

[Bill_McBride]

I played Harding for years and Presidio a few times. I think, given equal conditioning, that Harding is a lot better course. The back nine is really a great group of holes, particularly those along Lake Merced.  The problem of course is that it's not been in decent or even miserable condition since the '60's.  

When evaluating Bay Area (SF) courses, it's probably Ocean and SFGC 1-2 or 2-1, name your own #1, and then California Club and Lake Merced.  Harding is pretty far back.  If the $15 mil gets it into great condition, good deal.  But I'll bet  most of that money goes into the general fund to house the homeless.   How could they spend $15 million just to get the course into decent condition?

[John_D._Bernhardt]

Bill, I do not know how you can spend 15 million even on 36 holes. I could have a great year just being the middleman on the deal. Remember Harding has no land costs.

[John_D._Bernhardt]

A thought would be to put 10 million is a fund to help support maintenance on it. 5 million will build all the course they need.

[Joel_Stewart]

If you piece the different aspects of what they are doing it probaly adds up to $15 million.  This is my guess.

Part of the $15 million is to tear down the old clubhouse, build a new one and build a new maintance facility.  Of course its a bidding process using union employees so my guess thats $5 million.  

Also, a complete state of the art irrigation system is going to be installed and I would guess it would run $1-3 million.

Tree removal.  Most courses either bury or burn their trees.  Not Harding.  They have truckers take the trees off site, cost $1 million.

New asphalt parking lot - Cost $1 million

New driving range with first tee program with handicap access- Cost $2 million

New equipment for maintence - Cost $1 million

That leaves around $5 million for the digging up and reconstruction of the course.
 
It all adds up.

[Kevin_Reilly]

Don't forget cart paths.  My guess is that the course will have lots of nice white paths going here, there and yonder.

[David Wigler]

Joel,

You forgot two things:

Relocation of the endangered Spotted Mealworm that is found living under the clubhouse once it is dug up.  The environmentalists will require a donation of at least $500k to Greenpeace and $500k to study and build a new habitat for the mealworm - Cost $1M

Conduct a study to find how many courses are named after women or people with alternative lifestyles on the demands of the San Francisco city council.  After finding that no such courses exist, the requirement that all funds will be withheld until the course is either renamed Susan B. Anthony Municipal golf course, Barney Frank Municipal golf course or in a best case scenario (Since it encompasses both) Karrie Webb Municipal Golf Course.  Let's face it, no one knows who Harding was anymore anyway.  Cost to remake all scorecards, tees, markers, shirts, towels, etc. - $1M

Bless the liberals in San Francisco!

[Gib_Papazian]

Sorry, this has no chance of success. Zero.

The last I heard, the PGA Tour "in house" design team was going to draw  up the remodel. When was the last time you heard of the PGA Tour  coming up with a great golf course?

As far as I can see - where San Francisco is concerned -there is not a single person with the slightest idea what they are doing. Not the dumbshits that run Park & Rec, not City Hall, certainly not *their* (I live down the Peninsula)  congenitally crooked mayor Willie Brown.

I'll give Sandy Tatum credit for guiding this mess through the labyrinth of stupidity, political correctness and incompetence that poisons every single endeavor in San Francisco.

But no matter how much money they throw at this, the end result will be a embarassing disaster - and not for the city government. They cannot be embarassed because they have no shame, class or brains.

Sandy Tatum will go to his grave with the yoke of rotten egg dripping off the end of his nose because after this turns into  a fiasco, the left wing press and the rest of the pseudo-communists will all point the finger at the PGA Tour and  Sandy Tatum for their own failures.

And not one of the coffee house intellectuals will notice a thing . . . .  

[Neal_Meagher]

Gib, Joel, et.al.,

Ok, you are right about San Francisco having a well-deserved reputation for sifting the life out of their golf courses and into other services, pockets, etc.  And maybe after this thing is completed it will ever so slowly revert back to an arboretum for the study of exotic weeds.

However, I can almost guarantee that everybody, and that is everybody will be generally pleased and even somewhat excited with the "redesign" aspects of Harding Park.  The reason for this is because of the folks involved who are designing and constructing it.

The PGA tour designer, if I am correct, is Chris Gray, of whom I know absolutely nothing.  But their on-site designer is a brilliant student of golf architecture, Les Claytor, and a sometime contributor to this very discussion group.

Les grew up, played and caddied in Shaker Heights, Ohio and then came to U.C. Berkeley for his masters of landscape architecture where his thesis was on the history of public golf in the United States.  During that time he interned with my former employer for a while and also caddied at S.F. Club.  He has traveled to G.B. & Ireland on several occasions and has studied, studied, sketched and studied some more the nuances of all the great and not so great courses there.  I can absolutely vouch for his integrity and dedication to the art and science of golf architecture.  Additionally, he spent nearly 10 years building golf courses, part of that time with Landscapes Unlimited.  If Les is there everyday, this thing has way more than a fighting chance to reclaim its rightful design pedigree.

Landscapes Unlimited is doing the reconstruction and one of their main guys is a very, very smart former engineer and low handicap player who is from San Francisco and as such has a vested interest in making the most of the golf course.

Just sit back and watch this.  I may be the most naive guy on the face of the planet, but I can just sense what a wonderful job they will do.

And by the way Joel, from what I know, they will not have to haul every bit of clearing debris off-site.

[Joel_Stewart]

Gib:  I've been waiting for your sensable, calming, reasonable voice.  

When the official word came out a few weeks ago and the PGA announced the 2 architects (the names I cannot remember) I also thought who are these guys and how much can they screw up Harding?  I called Sandy Tatum and he reasured me that no major changes are going to be made on the course except for the 18th green being moved back and the repositioning of a couple of tees.  

I'll give Sandy some architectural credit and trust that the no-names from the PGA aren't going to bulldoze #16 or something crazy.

[David Kelly]

David W.,
How about the Harvey Milk Course at Harding Park? Did he play golf?

[Gib_Papazian]

Joel, Neal, et al.,

I know, because Neal told me and I trust his judgement, that the men and women rebuilding the golf course know what they are doing.

But S.F. officials have a history of meddlesome and counter-productive behavior. I am sure when the course opens it will be very good. . . . but not as good as it could have been because the PGA Tour is not going to blend in some quirk and creativity.

However, it will be a good, solid test of golf that the average guy will like and serve as a good test for the professionals . . . . the first year.

Write this down, the slide will begin the moment some money starts to come into the kitty and the criminal filth that has buried their AIDS infected hands deep into the soul of our once great city will invent some phony crisis and shamelessly steal every penny out of the piggy bank of Harding Park.  

[Leslie_Claytor]

Thanks for the kind words Neal.  I'll be at Harding Tues., and Wed. drawing up the existing greens and looking for room to grow.  Due to the dreaded tri-plex, the greens are almost perfectly circular and only represent the meat of the complex.  No. 12 is only 2500 sq. ft., no wonder I could never sniff that green from the tee.  Fortunately, you can still see where green fronts were, along with old bunker lines, etc.


Anyway, I'm confident we can deliver a good product, if we can get rid of the kikuya, without suffering the unabashed tounge lashing this forum can deliver. I haven't posted in a while, but I check in to read the banter quite frequently.  

Bethpage looks wicked, and well worth a nights sleep on a bench.

Les

P.S. I think Mr. Tatum's legacy will be safe.

[Gib_Papazian]

Ah, it has already begun!

I just received the angriest e-mail in history from the Lincoln Park Men's Club asking for my support in their fight against the city who is raising up their fees.

When Harding opens up, and the rest of the residents see what a golf course can look like, there will be screams from one end of Nutville to the other for some kind of egalitarian division of revenue to prop up the other courses.

That will be the first step down the polished marble staircase with slippery shoes. . . . . some half-crazed lesbian will start ranting at a Board of Supervisors meeting about one of the other courses and the money will start to divert. They cannot say no because common sense is not allowed in Nutville.

Sandy Tatum is a great man Leslie, but he is only one man in a sea of absolute idiots in city government.

Every promise that comes out of Willie Brown's mouth is a lie, I know. He betrayed everyone on the San Mateo County Course with one of the most disgusting and shocking back room deals in history

He lied to Bobby Jones and Bob Lurie, right to their faces. I was there, sitting between them. He lied to every single person in that room because he was there at Crystal Springs to pick up a check for one of his pet charities.

Do you think he knows anything about golf? He said he was "going to make the public courses in San Francisco as good as courses like the Olympic Club." When I asked him about Golden Gate, he had no idea it existed . . . . . nor that there is a children's event there every year.

Pretty normal day for him and his cronies. Show up, collect the check, tell a few lies, pose for a photo-op, get in the limo and leave.
 
I'm sure you will do as wonderful a job as Neal says you will
and he has spoken highly of you in the past . . . . . but come back in five years and tell me what you see.

You think Tim Finchem is going to tolerate a bunch of nonsense from those glorified begonia trimmers they call a maintainence crew? Please. Labor faking is a way of life and nothing is going to stop that but a complete housecleaning and a managment company with complete autonomy.

The Tour Championship visits Harding Park maybe twice, probably once, before they pull the pin.

Wonder why A.P.'s firm abandoned their contract and ran like spooked cattle?

Because the graffitti on the wall is clear . . . . . . once the money starts to come in, all bets are off and your nifty creation is going to be indistinguishable from Lincoln Park by the end of the decade.

Sorry, I bet you are a nice person, but your efforts are going to go for naught.

[JakaB]

Gib,

Having been a recent visitor to San Francisco I must say that both my wife and I found the city services to be outstanding.  The streets were paved and clean...the water tastie and the flush rates dependable.   The homeless and gays were both friendly and an asset to the tourist experience.   You just need to live in my world for a while to cherish how great you've got it.

I think Harding Park will emerge as one of the top 5 munis in the country and stay that way for the simple fact the people who run Saint F.  want to blow away Torrey Pines.  Pride be it gay or self-serving mixed with a little spite will continue to prove you wrong on this subject for years to come.

[John_D._Bernhardt]

Neal, thanks for your information. i now back off the 15 million comments. If the tour/Jacksonville Mob is involved, every nickle plus some will flow out on the front of the deal to a bottomless pit of consultants. The tour learned from the federal govt on how to make any deal triple in cost without really trying hard.

[Mike_Sweeney]

I met Sandy Tatum today at Bethpage who was signing copies of his book at the US Open shop. It was a real pleasure to meet him, and his love for the game showed when he was most interested to see if my 6 year old plays golf, which he does. After seeing what this US Open has done to Bethpage, I really hope the same happens out at Harding Park.

[Joel_Stewart]

I took a drive over to Harding today and its very spooky looking at the course, no one around, very peaceful and quiet.  I couldn't see any construction or any work in progress.  One thing that surprised me -duh- is that they have turned off the water or sprayed round-up on a large portion of the grass since its all turning brown.