The information in this newsletter is being distributed among allied associations that form the California Alliance for Golf (CAG), the organization that speaks with one voice in the Capitol regarding legislative and regulatory issues of statewide scope.
As reported in the Orange County Register May 8 and confirmed but a few short days later at the May 13 meeting of the Irvine City Council, the Irvine Company plans to close Oak Creek Golf Course to construct what would be the newest of that city’s more than 45 planned villages, replete with 3,100 new residences, pocket parks, trails, community centers, a new school, a trove of affordable housing vouchers, a business resource center, and funds to extend the city’s transit system.
To be precise, the City Council has authorized the City Manager to craft a proposal based on the principles contained in an MOU that amounts to an agreement to try to come to an agreement regarding a formal planning proposal – a process slated to include general public input, specific stakeholder input, and take at least one year, leaving plenty of time for the Oak Creek golf community to assess whether it is the better part of wisdom to simply oppose the project or seek some measure of a golf component in that final formal proposal.
Oak Creek is a daily fee golf course – that is, it is privately owned but wide open to public play. Sort of. Unlike other Southern California cities that decided to make golf available to their middle and working classes by constructing municipal golf courses, Irvine elected to include the same amenity in its planned community by permitting the Irvine Company to include within the city’s designated open space a 164-acre public golf course that was specified as golf specific open space in 1988 by Irvine’s voters. At least that is what the voters thought they voted for in 1988 – they and some of the city’s past mayors who testified against the project at the last Irvine City Council meeting. But the City Attorney opined differently. Whether the City Attorney opined correctly or not doesn’t matter unless that opinion is challenged in court, something that many of the locals who testified against the proposal may well do.
And Oak Creek is known throughout the Southland as one very successful daily fee golf course. It plays host to 70,000 rounds of golf per year and offers separate practice-only memberships for its large state-of-the-art practice facility at a guest fee schedule of $180-$230 for 14-day advance reservations, $210-$260 for 6-week advance reservations, $110-$140 for advance “twilight” time reservations, and $130 for senior citizen reservations (55 +). Small buckets of range balls go for $18; large buckets for $24. There are two “membership” programs that reduce these fees – a “Gold” program for $15,000.00 per year that offers much in the way of access notwithstanding the facility’s high usage rate and a lesser one that for roughly $570 per year offers discounted rates that shave roughly 25-40% off the “guest fee” schedule.
The costs of doing business in California are high, but Oak Creek rakes in more than enough revenue to offset those costs – and then some. By any measure, it is a very successful daily fee golf operation. It has everything in common with the myriad daily fee golf facilities that 65 years ago graced the City of Los Angeles some 40 miles up Highway 5 to its north, all of which no longer exist in 2025 Los Angeles, replaced by LA versions of Irvine’s planned urban villages, otherwise known as housing tracts, hotels, shopping malls, high-rise business complexes, and various other commercial/residential enterprises that represent exponentially higher and better economic uses of land than do golf courses, no matter how financially successful those golf courses may have been.
Today, Los Angeles is home to only two types of golf courses – very pricey private clubs and municipal courses – one a variety immune from market forces to the degree to which its owners are more interested in deriving benefits other than financial, the other a variety immune from market forces because the property is publicly owned, literally parkland. That cruel fact (“cruel” if one lives in LA and loves golf) may explain why the California Alliance for Golf (CAG) and its constituent organizations fought so hard to defeat what it termed the “Public Golf Endangerment Acts” of 2021 and 2022, bills that would have offered up millions of dollars of free money to developers to chop the state’s municipal golf courses into affordable housing complexes.
Sixty-five years ago, Los Angeles had half the population it has today, and a lower percentage of that population played golf. Yet there were far more places to play the game then than now. It’s no wonder that the whole tee time brokering matter exploded in the Los Angeles market. Far more golfers chasing far fewer tee times provided the perfect conditions for the creation of an illicit market. Where there is money to be made, folks will find ways to make it.
An economist might suggest that the process the nation’s second largest city underwent in converting privately held golf courses to higher and better uses two generations ago (financially better but not quality of life better) and the process that the planned closure of Irvine’s Oak Creek Golf Course might be presaging in nearby Orange County is exactly what Joseph Schumpeter famously termed the “creative destruction” central to market capitalism’s capacity to make societies practicing market capitalism richer.
We are not economists, but it doesn’t take an economist to understand that to expect property owners to forgo much greater income in favor of much lesser income, and a lesser amount that comes with more risk, is to expect something that rarely happens. It’s certainly not an expectation to hitch one’s long-term strategic plans to. And it’s certainly not something to ignore by comforting oneself that this is just a Los Angeles or Orange County problem. If you are reading this from somewhere other than population-packed Los Angeles or Orange County, ask yourself whether the same mix of housing unaffordability, rising business costs, rising land values, onerous construction standards/processes, and increasing population density is the same toxic brew you too are beginning to experience, and then ask yourself whether what was yesterday in Los Angeles is increasingly today where you are reading this. If your answer to both is yes, then you might want to try to get in front of what is coming your way by getting beyond the exigencies of the moment to something more along the line of the kind of long-term strategic thinking that separates those sectors that continue to thrive from those whose best days are behind them.
Golf is rightfully giddy about the game’s resurgence the last 5 years. But we need to be equally aware that it will be all but impossible to sustain that resurgence if the many who now want to partake in the game don’t have places to play. They will eventually drift toward spending their discretionary dollars on pursuits capable of accommodating them. It’s great that so much energy is being poured into “growing the game,” but it is not possible to grow something if you don’t have places to grow it.
Assuming the Irvine Company is successful in transforming its Oak Creek Golf Course into an urban village, the thousands of Orange County golfers who make up those 70,000 annual Oak Creek rounds and pack that 65-stall range every day, are going to have to find other places to spend their golf dollars. That is going to be problematic in a place the NGF already describes as among the most golf starved in the nation; that is, too many golfers chasing too few golf holes. They aren’t going to find places in the county just to their north, the place that many consider the most golf starved in the nation. They just might be lost to the game, or at least lost until such time as they either move or retire to a place that can accommodate their desire to play the game, assuming that by the time either one of those happens, their golf habit hasn’t been replaced by another recreational habit.
Dealing with a situation like Oak Creek, where one’s best effort proves not good enough, ought to be cause for alarm, not the complacency we too often witness. It’s a situation that in conjunction with what preceded it in Los Angeles ought to be front and center at the many “business” and “strategic” conferences that the game hosts each year, instead of mostly absent.
Who wants those who come long after them to conclude that that those who preceded them left them pining for better days long gone?
NOT ALL THE NEWS IS BAD
Buenaventura GC Reopens as a 14-hole Golf Course in Anticipation of Restoring its Former 18-hole Regulation Status
When the Buenaventura Municipal Golf Course went completely underwater in January 2023, it looked like this mainstay of Ventura public golf for nearly 100 years had seen its last days. Located in a flood plain as are many municipal golf courses in California, the course had gone underwater many times over the years, but the water always receded, leaving some damage but damage easily remediable. But this time was different, and before the course could be restored and reopened, the city needed to figure out what had changed and more importantly, how to accommodate those changes so that the course wouldn’t go underwater again.
Most importantly, the city needed to figure out how to pay for whatever flood mitigation might be necessary in addition to paying for the restoration of the flooded facility. That’s why many in the Ventura golf community thought they may have seen the last of their beloved golf course. The Ventura City Council thought different, and in a 6-1 vote last year authorized the City Manager’s Office to explore working with FEMA to develop a plan to solve the flooding problem as part of an overall solution that restores as much as of the original golf course as possible within the scope of the necessary flood mitigation work. The city’s Golf Advisory Group, which had gone dark during COVID, was brought back to life to assist.
According to project manager Deputy City Manager Brad “Brick” Conners, the goal is to reopen all 18 holes; however, should the flood mitigation work require more acreage than the city’s consultants now anticipate, he is also working with California based golf course architect Damian Pascuzzo to develop an alternative – a 12-hole course with a driving range and short-game practice area. But he and City Council Member Jim Duran, in whose district the golf course sits, are adamant that the goal is to restore all 18 holes. When the preferred plan and the alternative plan are complete, the city will conduct a community meeting to share the results, take additional public comment, and bring a final recommendation to the City Council.
The 14-hole temporary layout, which comes with a reduced greens fee schedule, is meant as much to relieve some of the pressure now experienced by Ventura’s other municipal golf property Olivas Links as it is to demonstrate the city’s commitment to restoring the city’s much older of its two municipal golf courses.
Tee time booking is open online 10 days prior to the date of desired play at www.buenaventuragolf.com or via telephone between 7:00 AM and 7:00 PM at (805) 677-6772.
“ONE BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL”
On May 12, House Republicans introduced a 389-page tax proposal , officially titled "The One, Big, Beautiful Bill", as part of the budget reconciliation process, with a scheduled markup by the House Ways and Means Committee later in the week. The bill carries a projected cost of $3.7 trillion over 10 years, aligning with the $4.5 trillion ceiling established in the concurrent budget resolution. Given the GOP’s narrow House majority, significant debate and potential amendments are expected before a final committee vote.
The Ways and Means Committee advanced the bill on May 14 with a party-line vote, rejecting all Democratic amendments. The legislation now moves to the House Budget Committee, where it will be combined with other measures before heading to the full House. The debate remains contentious, particularly over the SALT cap* and the distributional impact of the proposed tax cuts, which analyses suggest would disproportionately benefit higher-income households. Republican leaders aim to pass the bill through the House by Memorial Day, after which it will proceed to the Senate.
* State and Local Tax (SALT) Deduction Cap
Raises the SALT cap from $10,000 to $30,000, with income phaseouts at $200,000 for single filers and $400,000 for joint filers. Some GOP moderates from high-tax states like California and New York are pushing for a higher cap, up to $124,000, and have voiced dissatisfaction with the current proposal.
Among the more “interesting” provisions of “The One, Big Beautiful Bill” is the elimination of federal taxes on tips and overtime income, which fulfills one of President Trump’s 2024 campaign promises. Among the most “interesting” of the excisions are the dropping of all discussion of eliminating federal taxes on Social Security income and increasing federal taxes on very high income earners.
The legislative process is fluid, and further amendments are expected before any final bill is sent to the president for signature.
As previously reported, if the golf industry is unable to secure some relief this year from that 1977 IRS Regulatory language that under certain nationally declared disasters (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes) denies golf courses the same FEMA relief accorded similarly situated businesses, it may be a long time before golf gets another chance, as it may be a long time before Congress again ventures another massive tax bill akin to the one on its plate in 2025.
SB 51 – UPDATE
The water bills CAG is supporting this year as well as the bill is supporting that would permit junior golf programs to satisfy their obligation to provide automated electronic defibrillators (AED’s) through trained coaches as opposed to “medical professionals” are moving forward with little opposition.
The one bill CAG is opposing this year, SB 51 that would put California on permanent Standard Time, has been put in the Senate Appropriations Suspense File. It will be heard May 23; at which time it will be released to the Senate floor for a vote or held in committee. If it is held in committee, it will be dead in 2025. If it released to the floor, it would need 2/3 of the Senators (27) to pass out of the Senate and move over to the Assembly for consideration, where it would have to pass through committee, escape the Appropriations Suspense File, and receive a 2/3 vote of that Body as well – all before moving to the Governor for signature or veto.
Our hopes for being held in the Senate Appropriations Committee were greatly enhanced when the Senate Appropriations Committee Staff analysis calculated the costs of passage as potentially including the costs of a statewide voter initiative. If you’ll recall, the Senate Energy Committee analysis included a warning from Legislative Counsel that because of 2018’s voter initiative on the subject, any action that would in part obviate the details of that successful vote could require a second vote of the people.
Speaking of the fiscal details that will suffuse much of what transpires during these Suspense hearings, here is the latest concerning Governor Newsom’s May budget revision. Spoiler alert; as the year progresses California’s fiscal situation continues to deteriorate.
Deficit Summary:
How the Governor proposes to close the deficit:
One very golf relevant feature of the Governor’s May revision involves the streamlining of the administrative processes necessary to expedite the completion of the Delta Conveyance Plan, a “Plan” that promises to protect the system that delivers water from the Sierra Snowpack to the Southern part of the state from earthquake and/or other major damage/disaster.
Again, while we believe the chances of this bill becoming law in 2025 very slim, we do have to remind you that this is a long simmering issue that by virtue of passing out of its policy committee of reference this year, has advanced further than it has to date. The proponents of permanent standard time are organized, funded, and focused on their cause. They are not likely to go away but to just keep making their case and running their bills until they prevail, or Congress preempts them by passing some form of the “Sunshine Protection Act.” Were they ever to secure a Democratic co-sponsor, something their counterparts in Nevada have managed to do this year, their prospects for passage would be greatly enhanced.