The City of San Diego wants to get three things accomplished with this long awaited redesign; it has been over ten years since they first proposed that Rees Jones redesign the North Course and city residents vehemently protested another torture test, stalling the project:
USGA spec greens; the City doesn't like the pushup California based greens as they require some attention while watering during hot and dry spells. They love the fact that they can just turn on the sprinklers at the South course and not have to worry about over or under watering. Now the greens on the North Course are a work of art and are worth preserving. I asked City Golf Manager Mark Marney if they would consider using XDG as a means of preserving what they have. He said they would do whatever their architect recommended; he clearly didn't know or care about XDG. As Joe Hancock likes to say " there's no money in doing nothing". It's also obvious that even though the Tour Pros only putt on these greens for one day out of the year they are embarrassed by they difficulties they present. Just watch today's telecast and see how badly they putt on them. They now have a steady diet of flat and fast and simply don't possess the imagination to make hard breaking putts!
The City is also desperate to install a $1,000,000 continuous concrete cart path. The one at the South course was instrumental in getting their fairways in shape in the lead up to the US open in 2008. The City can also open the course to cart traffic in wet weather by going cart path only. They installed one at Balboa Park last year so they could send carts out on the 20 wet days we have each year; it will certainly take a long time to get your return that investment. We certainly wouldn't want to interrupt the revenue stream to the City Golf Fund though.
The current green fee for non City residents on the South is $235, the North can only charge $100; the Billy Bell name has little to no cache. However a name brand redesign will allow for a significant hike in green fees for non residents. I would expect the non resident green fee for the North Course to easily double when Weiskopf's work is done.
There are certainly some issues that needed attention at the North. The bunkers have morphed into mere puddles of sand and there was a desperate need for a bunker renovation. The course has been pushed to it's limits distance wise so there will likely be no yardage added. The fairway bunkers all sit at the 250 yard mark off the tees, dating back to when Tour Pros actually hit the ball that far. They provide little deterrence in the Pro V 1 era. The perception is that when they are placed in the Tour Pro range from the back tees they will be completely out of reach for the average player. Sadly Phil Mickelson's plan of moving the 8th green back and directly along the canyon edge, creating a do or die par 5 was not included in the Weiskopf design. Since the entire site is mad of hard pan or red clay topped with a 6 inch layer of top soil it would be prohibitively expensive to do any shifting or regarding of holes, which is why they are only doing tees, bunkers and greens.