Harding Park Update

[Kevin_Reilly]

This mornings paper said that it looked like Harding's $16 million remodel/refurbishment is getting close to city approval, so it looks as though it will in fact begin in May.  Here is a column from the SF Chronicle with more specifics:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/03/24/SP229607.DTL

Note that the project was supposed to be $15 million in that article...today's paper quoted $16 million.

By the way, after reading the Tatum article I sent a note to the writer Brian Murphy.  Here it is:

************************************

Kevin:

I hear you loud and clear, my man. I fear, however, that your wishes (and mine) are lost in the modern era of high-end daily fee golf courses. Carts, carts, carts. The only thing carts are good for is for older men who cannot play unless otherwise equipped with one.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

Brian Murphy

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Reilly
To: bmurphy@sfchronicle.com
Sent: 3/24/2002 10:47 PM
Subject: Harding

Enjoyed your Harding update today.  One quick point:  every time someone compares Harding to Bethpage in NY , please remind them that one big difference is that the Black course at Bethpage (site of the upcoming Open) does not have a single cart path, and does not even allow carts. WALKING ONLY!
 
I can only imagine how much of the $15M Harding budget has been earmarked for paths, cart sheds, carts, etc.  Harding is one of the easiest courses in the world to walk (my 72 yr old dad plays there every week and always walks), but I can already picture the cart freeways that will be put in place out there.  Too bad.  What an opportunity for a caddy program or something.
 
Kevin Reilly
Lafayette

[THuckaby2]

Good man Kevin - fight the fight.  You are right on here most definitely.

And if there is an absolute HERO of NorCal golf, it is Mr. Tatum.

I'm quite happy this was announced, and yes it is getting quite a bit of media attention, isn't it?  But I don't recall seeing anything re on-going maintenance post-renovation.  Please tell me that won't be handled by the SF City gardeners... If that's the case, I really see a great course for about 3months, reverting to the cow pasture it is today...

TH

[A_Clay_Man]

Does anyone here find 16 million to be a large enough sum to scratch their head till it bleeds? Helll you could have a Fazio for 17!

[Kevin_Reilly]

Sorry Tom      ...from the Plan:

"Course Maintenance.  City employees will continue to maintain the courses.  In fact, to properly implement and sustain the renovation project, a substantial increase in the number of City employees working on the courses is required.  In addition, new equipment, supplies and specialized training will be provided to fully empower the City’s maintenance staff. "

[THuckaby2]

KR:  oh man... that's what I'd heard, couldn't believe it to be true.  Poor Mr. Tatum.. I really fear his dream turning to crap all too quickly.  Poor Bay Area golfers also...

Is there ANY opposition to this?  ANY comment?  It just seems so obviously horrible planning.. one need only look at how incredibly hideous Harding became under their care before... I can't be the only one fearful of this.  Their words (more staff, better training) are at least some encouragament, but man this is scary.

TH

[Mike Cirba]

Perhaps the course can be renamed Graft Municipal after the project.

How much you wanna bet it goes over budget??

[Gib_Papazian]

Barny,

You actually raise an interesting point regarding the participation of homosexuals in the golfing community of S.F.

Oddly enough, I have seen many many instances of obvious lesbians playing our municipal courses both in organized groups and informal foursomes.

That said, I have yet to see what looked to be a homosexual male doing the same. And please, don't give me the old line about not being able to judge a book by its cover.
Gay men in this part of the world are terribly proud of their sexuality and dress in uniform. Tight, straight leg jeans, earring in the right ear, pencil mustache and closely cropped haircut.

How they manage to adopt affectations like that ass-wiggling prance is beyond me, but I have never seen it carrying a golf bag down the fairway.

But if gay men took up the game en masse, I guarantee that the condition  of Harding would stay as pristine as their neighborhoods. These people are remarkably fastidious and the only group in San Francisco who can make that crooked sycophant mayor Willie Brown jump through hoops.

But they won't because the sodomites are too busy lobbying lawmakers to become a victimized minority group or reopen the bathhouses.

Write this down: Harding is doomed in the long term unless the PGA Tour comes in and cleans up the mess every few years prior to the tournament. The laziness and stupidity of the union and their gardeners is institutionalized.  

Sharp Park is a sewer. Lincoln is worse. Golden Gate - a wonderful Jack Fleming par-3 course in the heart of the park - is absolutely threadbare and has exactly one gardener on staff to maintain it.

If there was ever a place for kids to be introduced to the game, that is it. I was, playing every year in the old Examiner Junior Match Play Tournament.

All these pollyannas like Sandy Tatum and Brian Murphy are inevitably going to have egg dripping off the end of their noses because they are negotiating with idealogue terrorists.

Oh, and the same group of filthy criminals on the S.F. Public Utilities Commission -  who have reneged on their agreements with our county for a golf course since 1966 -  are going to make sure that residents of Nutville pay $38 to play Harding while charging everyone else one hundred dollars more.

Just like they do with our water, just like they do with everything.  

[Kevin_Reilly]

Mike, considering the fact that the budget went from $15M to $16M in the span of 4 days, Lord knows how much this thing will end up costing.  And, like Tom says, it will still be a P.O.S. in about a year.  

[THuckaby2]

WHEW!  I was hoping Gib would see this and weigh in.  So my fears aren't without basis, eh?

And are non-SF residents REALLY gonna be charged app. $138?

More than Pasa.  More than Half Moon Bay.  More that the grotesquely overpriced Cinnabar, Coyote Creek tournament, more than Stone Tree in Novato....

The very soul of Bay Area golf shrieks.

TH

[Joel_Stewart]

The course is supposed to close May 4th.  Does anyone want to go out and play it (with camera) before it closes.  

[Lynn_Shackelford]

I question how naive Sandy Tatum is at age 81.  I am sure he has good intentions.  He says that it can't be done for $4 million, needs $15 million.  He is right about one thing, the $4 million.  Give me six months, $2 million and I can deliver a first rate muny for the golfers of SF.  After that, the city workers will let it slide in a matter of 12 months.  Sandy probably is not getting anything from this except what he needs, recognition.  Waste of money and time for all involved, including the taxpayers of California.

[SGD]

I question how naive Sandy Tatum is at age 81.  I am sure he has good intentions.  He says that it can't be done for $4 million, needs $15 million.  He is right about one thing, the $4 million.  Give me six months, $2 million and I can deliver a first rate muny for the golfers of SF.  After that, the city workers will let it slide in a matter of 12 months.  Sandy probably is not getting anything from this except what he needs, recognition.  Waste of money and time for all involved, including the taxpayers of California.

Lynn: Here, Here.

[Kevin_Reilly]

The course is supposed to close May 4th.  Does anyone want to go out and play it (with camera) before it closes.  

Joel, that would probably be fun, but my fear is that it would take about 2 years before you could take the "after" pictures!

[Joel_Stewart]

Kevin:
In hindsight what good would it do to go play the course in such bad condition.  I don't think it would be any fun.

Lynn and SGD:
I'm not trying to justify the $14 million but (I think) that money also includes a new clubhouse, new parking with paving, range and some type of new state of the art first tee facility.  Furthermore Sandy has budgeted for all new equipment as well as a new maintence facility.  

[THuckaby2]

Kevin:
In hindsight what good would it do to go play the course in such bad condition.  I don't think it would be any fun.

Boy do you have that right, Joel.  Golf at Harding is beyond depressing, and it's been this way for a LONG time.  I don't need perfect conditions, but I also don't much get into chipping on greens and lost balls in fairway clover.

TH

[Kevin_Reilly]

Lynn and SGD:
I'm not trying to justify the $14 million but (I think) that money also includes a new clubhouse, new parking with paving, range and some type of new state of the art first tee facility.  Furthermore Sandy has budgeted for all new equipment as well as a new maintence facility.  

And paths, lots and lots of paths.    That is actually one of the better things about the course right now (short list)...not much asphalt.

[Gib_Papazian]

Lynn,

Sorry, 2 million dollars would be nothing more than a band-aid on a brain tumor. The basic turf health is so far gone that you literally would have to start over again.

The city has ignored even the most rudimentary agronomic practices for at least 20 years and the damage is so severe that there is nothing left to work with. Nothing. Not even Dave Wilbur could fix it.

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 kikuya 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.

The driving range is the depressing thing I have ever seen associated with golf except for what is left of the "Fleming  Nine."

This was once a really fine par 32 loop that would not even be recognizable as a golf course today if not for the filthy rags limply hanging from the rusted-through flagsticks.

If that doesn't sound bad enough, think of what Alister Mackenzie would think of what his proud creation at Sharp Park has deteriorated into.

Poor Sandy Tatum. He is going to feel like Sisyphus before this is over.  

[Cass Andra]

Come to think of it, apart from Cliff Roberts, has anyone done as well financially as an amateur, than Sandy Tatum?

[Gib_Papazian]

I'd be willing to bet Buddy Marrucci has a few ducats.

[Dan Kelly]

I know zero about this course. (Is this where Venturi grew up playing?)

But this is the most depressing thread I can remember.

Stories about throwing away millions of dollars always get me down -- especially when those close to the scene seem resigned to it (if extremely irritated about it).

[THuckaby2]

Dan - this is indeed one of the courses Venturi grew up on.  And you think this thread is depressing?  Go look at how the course is right now.. Gib if anything might have UNDERSTATED things.

TH

[Joel_Stewart]

I stopped by Harding yesterday just to look around.  I thought Gib was kidding when he talked about the fairways being meadow grass.  Its from tee to green weeds with little white flowers.  I walked on the 18th green and it was just terrible, probably had not been cut in 3 days.  

The ironic thing is that the cart paths that Kevin talked about are probably only 2 or 3 years old and are the best thing on the course.  I'm sure it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to poor the cement (union of course).  The driving range was better than Gib discribed, it also has new cement foundation and new mats and the grass is better than any on the course.  Its still narrow and short.

[John_D._Bernhardt]

I am with Lynn for I doubt he plans on using city employees, contributing to campaigns, or most of all having all the masive overhead the tour and tour types make on the front side of its deals. 15 million will leave me 12 million in profit or 13 if I run a tight ship.

[Peter Galea]

I believe the condition of the turf is in part caused by the City of San Francisco's pestidcide reduction mandate. I don't remember the specifics, but I think they were heading toward a total elimination of pesticide use at City properties. This info could probably be found in their CHAMP Plan (chemical application management plan).

[Bill_McBride]

This is all pretty sad but pretty predictable given the state of politics in San Francisco.  We visit out there every year (wife's family) and have noticed the return of filth to the downtown area.  We noted several years ago that the City, even the Tenderloin, was cleaned up and looked great.  Our last visit in November was pretty depressing.  Panhandlers everywhere, homeless sleeping in alleys (in spite of some $100-200 million spent on the homeless by San Francisco citizens).  This sea change makes it understandable why the city courses are underfunded and ignored.

Too bad.  Harding Park was always an under-maintained jewel with a great double loop routing that finished with those great cliff holes on the back side with the view across Lake Merced of the O'Club's sloping fairways.

Lincoln Park was just fun!  Short driveable par 4's, tiny greens, greatest putting green ever, super view of the bridge.

Sharp Park was fun - never played the MacKenzie holes but there were some good holes there.  The hike up those back nine holes across the road was demanding!

But no maintenance - and looks like the money spent on Harding will be wasted too.  Maybe if they took all that money and spent it renovating and maintaining the existing courses it would be a better plan.

Given the current state of S.F. politics it will never happen.