Here is a good example of how useful this site is when grappling with an issue. As you can see, many ideas come directly (i.e. augmented or stolen) from previous posts of different Treehouse members.
PLEASE FORWARD TO ANG NEWSPAPERS. THIS IS A GOLF COLUMN FOR THE SAN MATEO TIMES.
By Gib Papazian
So the Harding Park remodel may finally go through, eh? Good for Sandy Tatum, one of the true gentlemen and statesmen of American golf, who carried the torch through Palmer Management’s abandonment and an impossibly frustrating political minefield.
However, at the risk of being a wet blanket on the giddy celebration, why don’t we interrupt the victory parade with a short reality check, shall we?
Yes, reality, a rarer commodity at the San Francisco Park and Rec courses than grass on the tees. Sure, it is quite a feat to get the city to cough up 14 million dollars for us “Bourgeois” golfers, but from my set up spikes, this looks to be a debacle waiting to happen.
Firstly, I would be remiss in not stating that anything done to Harding would be an improvement. The city has ignored even the most rudimentary agronomic practices for at least 20 years and the damage is so severe, there is nothing left to work with.
Harding Park today is little more than a field of wild meadow grasses growing in mud with some make-shift bunkers filled with a mixture of clay, beach sand and what looks like bird droppings.
The putting surfaces themselves are a combination of baked bare clay, dandelions, sickly poa and crabgrass. The 18th fairway has more kikuyu than anything else.
The pro shop is nearly empty, the trees are knarled, mangled and unkempt and the decaying shacks that pass as buildings look like something right out of eastern Russia.
Once a really fine par 32 loop, the Fleming Nine would not even be recognizable as a golf course if not for the filthy rags limply hanging from the rusted-through flagsticks.
But it is not just a matter of throwing 14 million dollars at something. The city plans to double the maintenance staff to a total of 18 workers, but at least half will be the same gardeners who have let the course erode into a city eyesore under the leadership of retired park and wreck chairman Bob Killian.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Golf course agronomy and upkeep is an extremely complicated science and there has been no suggestion of bringing in a professional Superintendent to oversee the two courses.
This oversight is particularly astounding because the city plans to bring the season ending PGA Tour Championship to Harding Park in 2006. Preparing a golf course for the Tour takes months of preparation. Suggesting a bunch of city gardeners could have Harding in shape for a prestigious event is as silly as making a lawn-mower mechanic the crew chief of an Indy car.
Plans call for some PGA approved retraining for the ground crews, but a mentality of mediocrity is so firmly entrenched from years of labor faking that it is difficult to envision a serious change in the work culture.
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem is a coldly objective man with absolutely no tolerance for mistakes. He knows the full meaning of the term quid pro quo and if he gets a sniff that his showcase event is going to be compromised with incompetency, he will pull the pin on Harding in a heartbeat.
Anyone who doubts this, take a look at what the conciliatory USGA did with the U.S. Women’s Open when Lake Merced couldn’t get its act together. Gone. And the membership hired Rees Jones to redesign their course for the event.
Remember, Tim Finchem is a businessman, first and foremost. Make no mistake, the PGA Tour is a business. Their in-house “Design Group” assembled the master plan, which incidently does not bode well for those interested in a sympathetic restoration similar to what New York City did with Bethpage Black - the site of this year’s United States Open.
And what happens if the union decides to strike for higher wages just prior to the tournament? Will city leaders work to find a quick solution to avoid embarrassment? Or will they hide like cowards, terrified of choosing common sense over populist dogma?
In addition, there are already rumblings from protesters demanding the golf course be maintained like an organic farm. No this, no that, complete with fist waving manifestos written by hostile anti-golf activists. Never mind that residential lawns in San Francisco have more unregulated chemicals applied to them than all the courses put together - several times over.
Despite these future hurtles, does the entire plan pencil-out? In truth, they have only a theoretical pro forma, of which the specific details of the revenue stream are yet to be determined.
Calculating 80 thousand rounds a year, the city is committed to collect $25 green fees from residents, but plans to name a committee of citizens to determine an appropriate fee schedule for everyone else. There is even talk of a three-tiered structure that charges $48 for Bay Area residents and $85 to $100 for those residing outside the area.
Somewhere in this vague and convoluted plan is a commitment to earmark $250,000 every year for capital improvements. It sounds a bit like the mythical “lockbox” for federal social security funds. Let the city fall short on one of their expensive pet projects and the cookie jar will be emptied in no time.
So, is there any realistic hope for success? Yes there is, but it will require the city to hire an experienced management company and grant almost total autonomy with no meddling.
Palmer Management does a decent job for the Fed’s at Presidio, but this same group was incapable of navigating the labyrinth of conflicting agendas in dealing with San Francisco itself. They fled town like spooked cattle, leaving a unconscionable mess in their wake.
This time, San Francisco needs a company who understands the political landscape, with the connections and financial muscle to make it work in the long term. Those in the know have a good idea of who they are, but whether they can stomach the process remains to be seen.
We have already seen the alternative.