This long awaited project is getting off the ground. Here are excerpts from an article at golfcoursenews.com showing the difficulty in getting a course built in CA:
After eight years on the job, Jacobsen Hardy Golf Course Design will finally see implementation of its design of Mendocino, Calif.'s first 18-hole course. Developed by the Mendocino Coast Recreation and Park District, the stand-alone course - tentatively called The Cypress Links at Mendocino - will begin construction in spring 2007.
The Mendocino Coast Recreation and Park District (MCRPD) first broached the idea of golf on this property back in 1992. Fourteen years, three Environmental Impact Reports and dozens of routings later, the project has received all the necessary permitting and is scheduled to open for play in early summer 2009 - on a striking-but-sensitive parcel featuring sandy soils, long views of the Pacific Ocean, and stands of cypress, northern bishop pine, redwood and hemlock.
"Each design we undertake is driven by its environment," says Peter Jacobsen, the PGA Tour veteran who partners with Jim Hardy in Houston-based Jacobsen Hardy Golf Course Design. "It's the factor that affects the style of course we design, the time it takes to gain permitting, the construction schedule - everything. The Mendocino project has taken a very long time, but the golf course we plan to produce there will be worth all the time and effort.
"When you work with the environment, that's just the way it is. The heavy, wet winters here will require two construction seasons, for example: Construction bids go out this winter, so we won't begin building the course until May; seeding must be completed by August, so we'll have to wait until 2008 to complete finish work and grass the course.
"But in terms of course style," Jacobsen continues, "the landscape here will yield a breathtaking collection of golf holes. It's difficult to ignore the similarities here to golf on the Monterey Peninsula, Spyglass Hill in particular. Our opening hole - a downhill par-4 - is so reminiscent of the 1st at Spyglass, it's scary. The peakaboo views of the Pacific, the Cypress trees, the vegetation. It's all there - but this course is a whole lot closer to Highway 101!"
www.golfcoursenews.com/news/news.asp?ID=2723