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.
SACRAMENTO – LOOKING FORWARD
The 2025 session may be in the rear view mirror, but the legislative process in California never really takes time off, even when like this year there is a special election to distract attentions.
Now is the time when those seeking to run bills in 2026 do their work. As we have been reporting, the California Alliance for Golf (CAG) is seeking to be among those doing such work in the form of a bill that would do for the public golf sector what various iterations of what are called “Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Acts” are now doing for the restaurant sectors in New York, Florida and roughly 14 other states – “doing” by creating remedies to counteract those 3rd party re-sellers that operate without written agreements. A California version of that “restaurant” bill will be filed in 2026. A 2025 version was filed but withdrawn in order to put together the amendments necessary to secure consensus. In the mad scramble that characterizes the end of every session, lots of bills simply run out of the time required to nail everything down for passage.
CAG has been pleasantly surprised – nay, pleasantly shocked – at the reception a golf version of such a bill has gotten from legislative committee analysts and others in Sacramento. As a result, CAG and those of its constituencies that are active in governmental affairs are in the process of pursuing the long road that “running” a bill entails. The details of that “long road” are complicated, and we will share some of them as the “process” unfolds.
But for now, we share the theory of the case that engendered the warm reception that buoyed CAG’s interest in starting down this “long road” – more than just warmth but in some cases, enthusiasm bordering on exhortation.
That case: Protecting equal access to publicly owned parkland.
Corollaries of that case: 1) Protecting the many California municipalities that operate their publicly owned parkland golf courses per an overriding mission to operate them at price points that are affordable, particularly for juniors, students, and seniors, and are thus below what the market would otherwise bear; 2) eliminating the substantial financial incentive that LAWFUL brokering of those tee times can so easily yield; and 3) protecting public users of publicly owned golf courses from being outbid by those willing to pay a premium for the preferred access that vitiates the very professed mission of these municipalities and the whole notion that members of the public ought to have equal access to publicly owned amenities.
All of the above are EQUITY arguments, not financial arguments. The case that has thus far resonated so well with those in the Capitol was entirely a case about not creating incentives for municipal owners to offer public properties for whatever the market might bear as a way to undercut 3rd parties scooping up the differences between their controlled prices and market prices. In other words, a case in defense of the affordability/accessibility quotient that most but certainly not all municipal golf programs in California maintain. As high as those prices at Torrey Pines might seem in comparison to normative municipal averages and means, for San Diego residents it is still well below what an open market would fetch. Truth be known, even for non-residents, particularly the many who trek to San Diego from other states and countries to play Torrey Pines, those rates are likely below what a completely open market would sustain. A golf version of these restaurant reservation bills would protect all this by making unlawful what unauthorized tee time brokers do as a function not of failing to pay taxes on the gains secured thereby (that's a crime no matter the source of the income), but on the very activity of re-selling without benefit of a written agreement with an owner/operator.
How do California’s daily fee golf courses fit into this; you might ask. They “fit” in the same way that privately held restaurants fit into those iterations of various “Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Acts.” They are protected as well. It’s just that the case for the state’s publicly owned golf courses is more compelling – particularly so for the lawmakers and policymakers in Sacramento. It’s a case that prompted a 2023 bill that did for the California State Park System precisely what we seek for the state’s municipal golf systems, and by implication the state’s daily fee stock.
As CAG pursues this, it's vital that golf understands that its left hand must always be cognizant of what its right hand is doing by not doing things that can be perceived as contradicting the value proposition represented by the ask in this instance. That and make sure that those 3rd party vendors that do operate by written agreement with owner/operators understand what they are not subjects of the bill, but rather unintended beneficiaries — an outreach that CAG has already begun to pursue. The many 3rd party vendors and re-sellers that now operate by agreement have agreements with owner/operators precisely because those agreements bring palpable value to their golf facilities.
WATER NEWS
Before we get to what can only be characterized as good news regarding recent developments in the California water situation, we do have to remind everyone that the clock is fast running down for the seven (7) states in the Colorado Compact to come to agreement about how to divvy up a Colorado Basin currently allocated at 17 million-acre-feet per year to reflect a Basin that now yields somewhere in the 12 million-acre-feet range and is predicted to drop as low as 10 million acre-feet in the coming decades. We have to remind that Lake Powell is now down to 29% capacity and Lake Mead is at 31% - above “dead pool” status but not by enough to merit complacency. All this as the federal government continues to predict that the Southwest will probably have above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation over the next several months – all coming atop last year’s meager Rocky Mountain snowpack that produced an even stingier runoff.
The deadline for hammering out the new agreement is the end of 2026. Thus far, all the reporting that has come out of these discussions is indicative of little if any progress. But deadlines do have a way of focusing minds. The alternative to no agreement among the states is an agreement dictated to the states by the federal government – followed in turn by multiple lawsuits between and among the states and the national government. A slick marketer might call it, “the government dithers while the Colorado Basin withers.” But we’re not marketers, so we’ll leave the slick tag lines to those expert in the field.
Now for what we hope you will agree qualifies as good news.
Coming on the heels of signing legislation that incorporates into the “California Water Plan” a 7-9 million-acre-feet increase in supply (SB 72) by 2050, Governor Newsom last week announced the following : That the “Delta Conveyance Project continues to make progress with two key milestones to push the project forward — a certification of consistency submitted to the Delta Stewardship Council and a state appellate court decision allowing pre-construction geotechnical work to continue.”
To emphasize both the importance of these developments and the Governor’s commitment to using his last year in office to address the state’s long-term water needs with supply strategies in addition to continued robust conservation measures, Newsom issued the following statement:
“California must quickly complete the Delta Conveyance Project to protect our state’s water supplies. No piece of infrastructure is more fundamental to our water supply and economic success. This is the most effective strategy to ensure that the state can continue to deliver water for Californians in future hotter, drier, and more extreme conditions. Enough delays, we must quickly move forward to protect Californians’ water supplies, and we look forward to completing this project sooner rather than later.”
To be clear, if one were to suggest an elevator pitch version of golf’s stance on the complicated issue of long-term water sustainability, it would be something like this:
As proud as the California golf community is of the financial and technological commitments it has made to reducing its water footprint, it is prouder of the substantial savings those commitments have yielded. Conservation is a key component of any water supply metric. Golf will continue to pursue it with the same vigor that has produced today’s substantial reductions and expects other sectors to do likewise. It is a key tool in the state’s toolbox of supply strategies. But if it is the only tool, California is unlikely to continue to be the world’s 5th largest economy with all the benefits associated therewith. Other tools – storm water capture, potable and non-potable reuse, aquifer replenishment, desalination, and yes, even some small measure of those above surface and fixed infrastructure projects like the Delta Conveyance Project that characterized California’s 20th Century supply portfolio – need to accompany conservation if the state hopes to thrive in a climate that in the 21st Century is warmer and drier than the one that proved so amenable in the 20th Century.
Some who also subscribe to that same basic “stance” call it the “one water strategy” – a strategy that doesn’t rely on any one strategy to the exclusion of others, but puts them all together in one basket, and a strategy that still puts primacy on doing all we can to use less water.
One more piece of “good news.” It’s less good news than evidence that those outside the golf community whose jobs require that they thoroughly understand how water is actually used in this state understand that golf is among the wisest if not the wisest stewards of the precious resource.
CAG and SCGA are active participants in the California Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) “Landscape Statewide Advisory Group” (LSAG) that meets regularly to review and update the state’s “Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance” (MWELO), the framework that forms the minimum standards that all of the state’s planning institutions (city councils, commissions, etc.) must follow when approving the landscape palettes of new residential and commercial projects as well as those projects that qualify as “reconstructions.” It doesn’t take much for a golf course to qualify as a “reconstruction” for the purposes of MWELO.
The latest iteration of MWELO (it’s updated every three years) applies different standards to different types of landscapes, with what are called “Large” or “Special” Landscapes accorded the most water in deference to their inability to substitute other species for turf. While one can substitute many California friendly drought tolerant species for turf when the subject of the palette is a residence or business, such is not possible for a park, sports field, or golf course, the three categories of use that along with cemeteries are defined as “Large Landscapes” in the state’s codes.
During the most recent meeting of the LSAG, we were treated to a presentation by the conservation manager for the huge East Bay Municipal Water District (EBMUD), whose 1.3 million customers live in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, a golf rich area of the state. He shared that EBMUD had run all the numbers for the various categories of users to determine whether they were hewing to the standards required by the current iteration of MWELO, and what the numbers revealed was that EBMUD’s residential and business users were falling well short, while the 155 “Large Landscapes” served by EBMUD were irrigating at .58 of their MWELO assigned evapotranspiration factor and actually using less water irrigating a species (turf) that is highly water consumptive than EBMUD’s residences and businesses were using to irrigate palettes capable of thriving on much less irrigation. He attributed the discrepancy to a fact that the golf industry knows only too well but the public understands not at all – that when highly professional irrigation specialists are combined with highly sophisticated (and expensive) irrigation systems, what you get is maximally efficient irrigation practices capable of yielding such impressive numbers. And what EBMUD’s conservation manager and his counterparts in the state’s other water agencies also know is that golf is the most efficient irrigator among the “Large Landscape” irrigators.
Dare we suggest that what these professional water managers know is something that the golf community ought to dedicate real resources to making known to as many as possible through every communication resource at its disposal. Instead of doing another economic study at great expense that is at best ignored and at worst used to make their case by those who would repurpose golf courses for higher and better economic uses, maybe the game would be better served by performing the same statistical redux statewide that EBMUD did in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. Just a thought from those among us who are accountable for getting RESULTS for the game in the public arena.
CAG IS TRACKING WAVE PARKS?
Should we now add wave or surf parks to the lengthening list of higher and better economic uses that threaten the existence of golf courses in California’s urban areas, particularly those golf courses that because of their reduced footprints serve as entry points to the game?
Based on a project moving forward in Newport Beach, that may or may not be the case, depending on who you believe. If you believe the developer of the wave park project, the plan to build atop the Newport Beach Golf Course’s clubhouse, driving range, parking lot, and opening holes of the executive length track preserves the holes on the other side of the parcel, which is owned by the County of Orange and within the federally mandated safety bubble of the very nearby Orange County Airport. Exactly who or what would operate those holes orphaned holes – “orphaned” in the sense that there is no parking lot, clubhouse, or practice facility on that side of the parcel today – is not clear nor has it been made clear in any of the entitlement hearings. Our understanding, and this is a tough one to understand, is that the county in collaboration with the OC Airport would control the remainder property. Three other agencies control in whole or part the half envisaged as the wave/surf park.
If we were addressing the situation, and CAG has not done so, we might channel our inner Ronald Reagan and suggest that if the Newport Beach City Council is inclined to approve this project based in part on promises about some form of affordable/accessible/developmental golf remaining in their community, they might “trust but verify.” Otherwise, they may end up with nothing more than vague unenforceable promises to show for it.
It’s important to distinguish this wave/surf park proposal from the one that is now under construction at the 36-hole Desert Willow Golf Complex in Palm Desert. The wave park at Desert Willow is being built on a contiguous piece of land separate and apart from the entire golf complex. When completed it won’t diminish golf at the site; it will simply make Desert Willow an even greater community asset than it is now by adding amenities in addition to golf that can be enjoyed by both golfers and non-golfers alike.
Perhaps we were naïve to think that wave parks would only be attractive to those hot, land-locked parts of the state nowhere near the coast and thus outside the zone of golf’s concern about urban/coastal repurposing schemes. But with this Newport Beach project and a project now well along in the planning process in El Segundo, a city on Santa Monica Bay 1 mile south of the Los Angeles Airport, it would appear that there may be another higher and better economic use to add to housing, data centers, and “entertainment” golf as potential threats. At least, like the Palm Desert project, the El Segundo project doesn’t conflict with an existing golf facility. Those with excellent memories may remember that the El Segundo golf community was successful in bringing a TopGolf to their town without cutting into the 9-hole 3-par golf course with which it shares the site. When golf communities organize and speak up, they can be a power to reckon with – more powerful than state advocacy alliances. Never let anyone convince you otherwise.
