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.
ASSEMBLYMEMBER CHRIS WARD (D-SAN DIEGO) INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO PROTECT EQUITABLE ACCESS TO CALIFORNIA’S PUBLICLY OWNED GOLF COURSES
SACRAMENTO, CA – Friday February 13 San Diego lawmaker Chris Ward introduced AB 1954, the “Blocking Illegitimate Reservations and Protecting Equitable Access to California’s Publicly Owned Golf Courses Act,” to give the state’s municipal golf courses a tool they don’t now have and only the state can provide to manage their parkland golf properties for the maximal benefit of the communities they are intended to serve.
There are over 220 golf courses in California that are municipally owned by cities, counties, charter cities, and the state. As part of publicly owned park systems, these courses operate per business models that eschew maximal revenue generation in favor of making them maximally available to local residents, seniors, juniors, school athletes, local clubs and civic organizations. Because California’s urban areas are among the most golf-starved in the nation, this model creates a demand for tee times second to none. It has also created opportunities for 3rd party tee time brokers to capture and re-sell tee times at inflated prices and in the process substantially reduce the already strained supply of recreational opportunities available to California residents.
When the ubiquity of 3rd party brokering became afront page story in Los Angeles and other California urban areas in 2024,municipalities adopted various forms of reservation protocols at the expense of the public that mitigated the problem but in the end were not capable of solving it.
In summer 2025 the United States Attorney's Office indicted two Los Angeles based tee time brokers for failing to report $1.1 million in income, $700,000.00 of which the indictment alleges was made from the resale of tee times at 17 Southern California municipal golf courses over the course of two years. It remains to be seen whether that allegation can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but whether it can or it cannot, the fact remains that their practice of tee time brokering was permissible under California’s Civil Codes. It is only the allegation that they failed to report and remit taxes on the income derived from the otherwise lawful activity that may have violated the law if proven to be true by the very high standard required by the criminal law.
AB 1954 would give the state’s cities, counties, charter cities, and the state itself a civil remedy that they would have to initiate of their own volition and at their own expense to restrain 3rd party brokering that is not performed by consent (written agreement) of the parties.
To be 100% clear; It’s important to emphasize that this bill does NOT in any way affect agreements that are freely entered into for ostensible mutual benefit; it ONLY affects brokering without the consent of the public agency that owns the golf course or the management group that the public agency has put under contract to operate its golf course. There are many well-known and popular vendors in that space. They operate by written agreements that bring benefit to both municipality and vendor, not to mention golfers, and would NOT be affected by AB 1954.
By operation of California law AB 1954 cannot be heard before its primary Assembly Committee of reference, Arts, Entertainment, Sports, and Tourism, which Assemblymember Ward Chairs, until the week of March 16, after which it is likely to be also heard by the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee.
The preservation of affordable, accessible public golf is always at risk, but it is a California value – consistent with California’s “better angels” of an open, opportunity-for-all society. That is why the Alliance has never shied away from protecting, preserving, and promoting the social and environmental utility of the game and what it offers communities in terms of recreation, public health, environmental sustainability, and social cohesion.
AB 1954 is not just fully consistent with those values; its passage would be a facilitator of them. The California Alliance for Golf (CAG) applauds and thanks Assemblymember Ward for authoring it.
Click (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1954) to read the bill.
