By Paul Rogers, progers@mercurynews.com

With California’s wettest winter in five years mostly in the books and a key Sierra snowpack reading Wednesday expected to show big gains, significant changes are coming to mandatory statewide water restrictions, according to top state water officials.

“We are likely to ease the rules or lift the rules,” said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board. “We are in better shape.”

The board imposed California’s first statewide water rules last May at the insistence of Gov. Jerry Brown — forcing hundreds of cities to limit lawn watering, ratchet up conservation programs and, in some cases, fine residents for using excessive amounts of water. Brown’s goal was to cut urban water use 25 percent on average from 2013 levels. From June through January, urban residents delivered, cutting 24.8 percent.

But with significant rain and snow in recent months, the drought emergency has softened considerably as it enters its fifth year, particularly in Northern California. The state water board is scheduled to hold a public hearing April 20 in Sacramento and will likely make a final decision May 3 on how much water rationing, if any, Californians should expect this summer, Marcus said.

Among the possible changes: lower conservation targets or perhaps no drought targets at all in parts of Northern California that have big rainfall totals, full reservoirs and healthy groundwater basins, she said. But Southern California cities with lower rainfall totals, struggling reservoirs and depleted reservoirs could continue to see strict rules, Marcus added.

“We’re not interested in keeping these emergency regulations going any longer than we have to, but we want to be judicious,” she said.

The board also is likely to make permanent the water wasting rules it imposed statewide last year. Those include prohibitions on hosing off pavement, a requirement that all restaurants ask customers if they want water before serving it, and a ban on watering lawns within 48 hours of rainfall.

The change between this winter and last winter has been dramatic.

On Wednesday, state surveyors will trudge into a snow-packed Sierra Nevada meadow at Phillips Station near Lake Tahoe with TV crews and reporters in tow. Last year, it was a barren meadow.

The most important snowpack reading of the year, the measurement, taken on or around April 1, provides a summary at the end of every winter of how much snow is in the Sierra, which makes up a third of California’s water supply.

The event is largely a symbolic photo opp. Through more than 200 electronic sensors, state officials already know that the Sierra Nevada snowpack was at 87 percent of its historic average on Tuesday, up from a shocking 5 percent last April 1.

“It’s been a great year. We could not have roadmapped a better ski season,” said Kevin Cooper, a spokesman for the Heavenly and Kirkwood ski resorts near Lake Tahoe.

Last winter, Kirkwood received 124 inches of snow. This year, that has already more than tripled to 440 inches so far. Heavenly has enjoyed 340 inches this year, four times the 84 inches last winter.

“We’ve seen a lot of skiers and riders return,” he said. “Businesses have doing really well.”

Other barometers of hydrologic health also are looking good. Among them:

• State reservoirs: After drenching storms in March, the two largest reservoirs in California, Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville, are now 88 percent and 86 percent full. As snow melts in the next few months, the massive lakes, which are critical to the water supply for farms and cities, are expected to fill to the top.

In early December, Shasta, near Redding, was 29 percent full. Its water level has risen 135 feet since then. Similarly, Oroville, in Butte County, was 27 percent full, and it has risen 217 feet. Together in the last four months, they have added 4.8 million-acre-feet of water — enough for the needs of 24 million people for a year.

• Rainfall: After four dry winters, San Jose through Tuesday was at 100 percent of normal. San Francisco was at 103 percent, Oakland 86 percent, Fresno 135 percent and Salinas 116 percent.
• Bay Area reservoirs: All seven reservoirs in Marin County are 100 percent full. Santa Cruz’s main reservoir, Loch Lomond, is 100 percent full. Pardee Reservoir, the main reservoir that serves 1.4 million customers of the East Bay Municipal Utility District, is 99 percent full. Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is 72 percent full. And the 10 reservoirs in Santa Clara County are 67 percent full, up from 49 percent a year ago.

But the El Niño storms that delivered rain and snow mostly hit north of Monterey, leaving Southern California dry.

“Everybody down here is disappointed,” said Bill Patzert, a research scientist and oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “The storms were headed for L.A. and made a sharp left for Northern California.”

Scientists still don’t know why, he said. And while the soaking storms all but wiped out droughts in Washington and Oregon, rainfall in Los Angeles is at 50 percent of historic average, Riverside 44 percent and San Diego 76 percent.

Water agencies around the state are waiting for the state water board to give them direction. Together, they have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from selling less water, and they are pushing hard for relief.

“We’ve got to adjust to the changing conditions. Local leaders should have more flexibility,” said Jennifer Persike, deputy director for the Association of California Water Agencies. “We asked the public to go all hands on deck and cut back, and they did it. Now conditions have changed. It’s very important to retain credibility. The boy crying wolf comes to mind.”

Environmental groups, however, are urging caution, noting that groundwater in many areas remains overdrawn.

“We’re not opposed to reductions in mandatory targets. But we want them to be conservative,” said Tracy Quinn, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We don’t know what next year will bring.”

Read the full article here.

COPPEROPOLIS, Calif. — Saddle Creek Resort – the Castle & Cooke California golf community in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Calaveras County – continues to build on its groundbreaking water mitigation program.

What began as a response to 2014’s mandate from local authorities to reduce water use by 35% has become a golf course calling card embraced by staff and guests alike. Since implementing a series of modifications to its agronomic practices – including shutting off 450 irrigation heads, limiting 350 sprinklers to 180-degree turns and substituting wetting agents for water when possible – Saddle Creek has saved nearly 70 million gallons of water.

Forty fewer acres of rough are being irrigated, while another 10-15 acres farther away from playing corridors have been returned to a native state dominated by long grasses. With general manager Rick Morgan and superintendent Pat Smyth leading the charge, these changes have not sacrificed course conditioning while saving the resort more than 10% on water, fuel, fertilizer and other maintenance costs.

“Our team met the challenge of the mandated water restrictions head on,” says Morgan. “We’re so proud of what we’ve achieved, taking an initially negative situation and turning it into an overwhelming positive for our guests, our budget and, most importantly, the environment.”

Firm and fast conditions through the green have been embraced by Saddle Creek players as tee shots now tend to roll for extra yardage. Moreover, the color contrast between tees / fairways / greens and their drier surrounds makes the course more attractive.

“Our guests understand what we’re doing and really like it,” adds Smyth. “Even if water restrictions are lifted, we plan to maintain our current levels of use as it’s simply the right thing to do.”

“We’ve taken a great course and, by being responsible environmental stewards, made it even better,” says Morgan. “We hope to be a model for other courses and show that prioritizing sustainability is a ‘win win’ for everyone on a whole host of fronts.”

About Saddle Creek Resort
Situated in the rolling foothills of the Central Sierra region just two hours from the Bay Area and 1.5 hours from Sacramento, Saddle Creek Resort sits in the heart of the Copper Valley in Copperopolis. Owned and operated by nationally-renowned developer Castle & Cooke California, the premier Northern California golf community. Although the recently-released Oak Collection is sold out, custom homesites and resale homes are available, many featuring golf course, lake and mountain views.

Saddle Creek’s golf course is routed through undulating terrain and features stunning views of the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite mountains. Since opening in 1996, the par 72, 6,826-yard layout has been heralded by players of all skill levels. It is annually ranked by Golfweek as a top-15 “Best Course You Can Play” in California alongside acclaimed layouts like Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, Pasatiempo and Torrey Pines’ South Course. Well-appointed golf bungalows are ideal for guests planning overnight stays.

In proximity to Saddle Creek Resort is Copperopolis Town Square, a traditionally-designed, Gold Rush era-themed “country town” that is the retail and event hub of the Copper Valley in the Central Sierra region. Featuring charming boutiques, eateries and specialty shops, the pedestrian-friendly Town Square is the perfect place to spend some time after a round of golf.

CONTACT:
Stephen Reynolds
Buffalo Brand Invigoration Group
703.344.6031
sreynolds@buffalobig.com
www.buffalocommunications.com

By: Jim Schmid, Special to The Desert Sun

El Niño’s rains are falling.  The Sierra snowpack is well above average.  The reservoirs are refilling in advance of the spring snow melt.  The state’s urban water users have reduced their 2013 usage by 26.3 percent. This confluence of events has persuaded the State Water Resources Control Board to relax current conservation mandates by as much as 8 percent in some regions and consider further relaxations in 2016 to the extent to which the rain and snow continue to fall.

At the same time the Coachella Valley Golf and Water Task Force is adding members and redoubling its efforts to reduce the desert golf industry’s water footprint by a factor of 17 percent.  I know; I’m one of the new members who joined other valley golf course superintendents, general managers, club members, management/ownership representatives and association leaders on the Task Force at the beginning of 2016.

You may be wondering why we would all join a conservation effort at precisely the moment we’re starting to see relief from the drought.  The answer is as simple as it is often overlooked.  The collaborative effort between the valley golf industry and the Coachella Valley Water District was convened not in response to any temporal drought, but in response to the goals of the Coachella Valley Water Management Plan – goals that are unique to this region and related almost exclusively to the integrity of the giant aquifer that sits beneath us.  Precisely because the golf industry is so large and impactful here in the valley – its 122 golf courses represent 14 percent of California’s golf stock, generate $1.1 billion in economic activity, and employ more than 14,000 workers – there is no way for the region’s water agencies to restore the aquifer to a state of equilibrium without an “impactful” contribution from the industry that defines much of life in the desert.

The founding members of the task force haven’t gone anywhere.  They established a scientifically grounded budget allocation model, created the region’s first turf rebate program, stimulated new desert-centric conservation programs, assisted in converting many more golf properties to non-potable sources, conducted myriad educational conferences designed to raise awareness and, in the process, laid a foundation upon which an expanded group of golf courses, disciplines and industry representatives can now ramp up efforts to bring the valley golf industry into full alignment with the Coachella Valley Water Management Plan.

Will it be easy?  No; important matters rarely are.  Am I glad I joined the task force’s ranks?  Absolutely; there is no “task” more important to the long-term sustainability of the industry that employs me and so many thousands of my fellow residents in this valley.  Will we get there overnight?  No, but that’s the beauty of this collaborative effort.

By starting down this road so early, the golf industry and CVWD have given themselves the luxury of the time necessary to get it right – right for the industry, right for the water district, right for the aquifer, and right for the community.

Jim Schmid is golf superintendent at The Lakes Country Club in Palm Desert and is a member of the Coachella Valley Golf and Water Task Force and the board of directors of the Hi-Lo Desert chapter Golf Course Superintendents Association. Email him at jschmid@thelakescc.com.

By: Craig Kessler

Chief NASA JPL climatologist Bill Patzert told the Los Angeles Times that the first week of 2016 amounted to a “textbook” El Niño system.  A rapid succession of storms lined up across the Pacific Ocean and pelted California at a faster clip than during the previous El Niño periods in 1982-83 and 1997-98, the implication being that all those predictions about a strong El Niño are coming to fruition.

At least for now.  When the subject is the weather, the only thing we can ever know for sure is what happened, not what will happen.  But so far, so good; indeed, so far, it couldn’t be better.

It may seem odd to rejoice in golf courses closed due to inclement weather, floods, and debris swelling flood control basins making beaches unsafe.  But after four years of a crushing drought in which California saw its driest year on record, hottest year on record, hottest combined hot/dry year on record, and the lowest Sierra snowpack recorded in 500 years – well, suffice it to say the closures, floods and debris swelled waterways are a small price to pay for some relief.

And that’s pretty much all that even a “textbook” El Niño will bring – relief.  It won’t end the drought.  It will take more than one great precipitation year to do that, and many climatologists are already warning that El Niño’s are often followed immediately by La Nina’s, a situation in which the eastern Pacific waters cool down and lead to a dry pattern over the American Southwest.

The first bit of “relief” promises to come later this month when the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) promulgates some relaxations in the current gubernatorial emergency drought order.  As everyone reading this surely knows, for the first time in the state’s history we are under a set of mandatory water restrictions aimed at accomplishing a 25% overall reduction in urban water consumption by February 28 (25% less than 2013 usage).  As of December 31, that number is tracking at 26.3%.  And due in part to that and due in part to the tolling of El Niño, the SWRCB is set to reduce that number to 22% and in addition reduce by a factor of 4% for those areas that have disproportionately invested in alternate sources of water (desalination in San Diego County and potable reuse in Orange County) and those areas where evapotranspiration rates are onerous due to extreme heat (deserts and inland valleys).

To the extent that El Niño continues along its “textbook” path SWRCB is prepared to issue further relaxations, although it is not at this time going to consider revoking the emergency order, which is going to be extended another 270 days as part of the envisaged “relaxation” measure.  The golf industry would hope that SWRCB might incorporate the Coachella Valley’s huge seasonal population shift into the mix of factors to consider when assigning tiers; when all those snowbirds are at their permanent homes in the “off season,” their outdoor landscapes require water even if their indoor areas don’t.  And that’s not an unreasonable hope.  With each iteration of these emergency regulations, the SWRCB incorporates more equity and nuance.

SWRCB was assigned a task for which it had neither adequate resources nor institutional memory, and it did not have the luxury of time.  Facing a possible 5^th year of drought, California simply had to reduce its water consumption or face potentially crippling shortage in 2016-2017.  Hard cases make bad law, but they have to be resolved.  Crises make for bad public policy, but they have to be addressed.  SWRCB deserves credit for adequately addressing this crisis, but that in no way obviates the need to use the time afforded us by El Niño’s appearance to craft better public policies for managing future droughts and drought emergencies.  And from what the climatologists tell us, our burgeoning population practically guarantees that we are going to face future droughts and drought emergencies.

Buried in the Governor’s April 1, 2015 Executive Order that created the mandatory 25% conservation protocol was an order to the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and SWRCB to begin reforming certain regulations and laws based on some of the lessons of the current drought.  DWR has already revamped the Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance (MWELO), and the California Alliance for Golf (CAG) very effectively participated in that truncated process; the formulae upon which golf course water budgets are assigned in virtually every “alternative means of compliance” protocol are enshrined therein, and any changes thereto would have resulted in budget allocations considerably smaller than they are presently.

In 2016 DWR will revamp additional regulations and ordinances with the potential to affect the golf industry, and CAG has been invited to the table where these initial deliberations will take place.  As SWRCB gets down to its own assigned regulatory/legislative workload, the golf industry is working to duplicate that same level of engagement.

El Niño may be closing the book on the great 2012-2015 drought, but it isn’t going to close the book on a rapid succession of new laws, regulations, and protocols regarding water allocation and use; indeed, the book is just opening regarding the regulation of groundwater.  The next few years will see the adoption of groundwater sustainability plans for all of the state’s un-adjudicated groundwater basins, and the golf industry has as much at stake in that process as it does in all of the DWR and SWRCB coming processes.

What now?  A new normal where business as usual promises to be more business with regulatory agencies and legislative bodies than at any time in the industry’s past.

By: Larry Bohannan

Imagine a day when more than 90 golf courses in the Coachella Valley will be on non-potable water, either canal water from the Colorado River or recycled water. Imagine none of those golf courses using water from the desert’s aquifer, leaving that water strictly for domestic use.

That possibility is not a dream, according to John Powell, board president of the Coachella Valley Water District. It is, in fact, a long-term goal, Powell said Monday at the Coachella Valley Golf Industry Summit at PGA West. The summit, conducted by the CareerBuilder Challenge and other golf-related organizations, was held at PGA West on the first day of the PGA Tour event.

“Currently, there are 53 golf courses using what we call non-potable water, and that’s either water that is imported Colorado River water or recycled, reclaimed waste water, or a combination of both,” Powell told the full house of about 250 attendees. “With the 53 courses currently using that water, including the ones here, we are looking to add another 43. So that would get us up to 96 golf courses in the valley over the next several years on either import or recycled water or a combination of both.”

Powell spoke during one of three panel discussions at the summit. And while the panels on the economic impact of golf in the desert and what is right with golf these days held messages that need to be heard, it was the panel on water use and management that was perhaps the most newsworthy and pressing in a state hoping that El Niño will end a three-year drought.

Golf courses across the state, and perhaps in particular in the golf-rich Coachella Valley, have been the focus of criticism during the drought as water became an issue throughout the state. Part of the purpose of the summit and the water panel Monday was to try to get the word out that golf courses in the desert are trying to do their part.

Powell said 18 golf courses in the CVWD district have undergone turf removal in the last year or so. And, as Stu Rowland of Rancho La Quinta Country Club pointed out, that was without the large financial incentives that were available to courses in areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas. Desert courses, Rowland said, had to share the cost of turf removal.

Pat Gross, west region director of the United States Golf Association green section, reinforced that the USGA believes water is a more direct threat to golf than the overall economic state of the country. But he added that while programs like turf removal save water, just how much water is being saved and at what cost can’t truly be determined yet.

Could a wet winter, and El Niño winter with the promise of drought relief ease the demands on desert golf courses for conservation? Powell said that’s not likely.

“What fits us is our water management plan. And we are really measuring our success against that,” Powell said. “Are we sustainable in this valley? We have unique characteristics that nobody else in the state of California has.”

So just because snow is continuing to fall in Northern California, that doesn’t mean that desert golf courses are going to re-plant grass or double their watering times. In fact, it’s more likely that even as the snow falls, golf courses in the desert will continue to search for ways to cut down on their water use and to change the kind of water they use rather than moving back to what they were doing five or 10 years ago. That’s likely the new reality of the drought.

By: Sam Richards

SUNOL — The Sunol Valley Golf Club, opened in 1968 surrounded by the flower nurseries and gravel-mining operations of the Alameda Creek area, will likely close in early January, with the final golf rounds set for Dec. 31.

General Manager Bryan Richardson said the issue, as with many golf courses in the East Bay and nationally, is mostly economic.

“The golf market in this area is saturated,” he said. “There’s been a severe softening of the market, and it’s the economy and other things.”

Fewer than 68,000 individual rounds have been played at Sunol Valley so far in 2015, he said, down from the course’s high of more than 130,000 a year in the late 1990s.

Another factor, he said, is the state’s drought-caused water shortage, which has meant a 500-percent increase in water costs over the past four years. “It just isn’t feasible to continue to operate a 36-hole golf course under the current circumstances.”

The last day of play on one of the two courses, the Palm course, will be Dec. 20; the other course’s last day of play on the adjacent Cypress course will be Dec. 31. The pro shop will be open Jan. 2 and 3.

The golf course is about halfway through a 25-year lease with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Richardson said. The SFPUC owns the golf course land and much of the surrounding area near Sunol, having bought much of the area in the 1930s for its water resources.

Almost three years ago, the Ivaldi family, the course’s only operator over 47 years, had worked with Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty’s office for the county to acquire the golf course land from San Francisco. If acquired, the plan was to do a “highest and best use” study for the land, said Shawn Wilson, Haggerty chief of staff.

Measure D, approved by voters in 2000, resulted in urban growth boundaries around cities and unincorporated communities in central and eastern Alameda County where urban development can’t happen without voter approval.

“The intent was to ensure that land remain open space, and a golf course,” said Wilson, adding that talks with the SFPUC are continuing. “I don’t think the SFPUC, if they take the land back from the (golf course) operators, have any good plan other than to close the course down.”

The SFPUC did not return a call Friday for comment.

Sunol Valley’s central location made it a popular destination for groups. On Friday, three groups on the greens consisted of friends from various areas.

“Now we’re going to see who’s better at persuading the rest of us to go farther south or farther north to play,” joked Francis Ho of Alameda, joining friends from Castro Valley and Fremont.

Having met there almost every Friday for the past three years, they said they were sad about the closure. “This is a real loss,” Ho said.

Bonnie Garnar of Castro Valley and Karen Carlson of San Jose have taken a similar meet-in-the middle approach eight to 10 times a year for the past 25 years.

“I’m bummed, really,” said Garnar, adding she loves the course and has cherished the after-golf burgers at the clubhouse.

Added Carlson, “Bonnie and I will have to find a new place to meet.”

Other area golf courses have closed in recent months, including the Pine Meadow course in Martinez and the Springtown course in Livermore. Others have been for sale.

The closures follow a national trend. Following a boom in the 1990s and early 2000s, the ranks of American golfers in general have declined, from 30 million in 2005 to 25.3 million in 2012, according to the National Golf Foundation.

On Thursday, Richardson gathered Sunol Valley’s 80 employees to tell them of the closure. He says he is grateful to Haggerty’s office for working to keep the course open in some form, but he’s convinced the end is near now — 32 years after he started at the golf course as part of a high school work study program.

“We want people to come down and get their last rounds, redeem their gift certificates and say goodbye,” he said.

Find the full article here.

Dec 17, 2015

One wouldn’t normally talk of golf and water preservation in the same breath. But containing water costs is becoming the very factor that will keep golf courses in the green. The United States Golf Association (USGA) is using GPS technology and targeted horticulture to help golf courses cut water consumption and related costs, as they seek to reverse their flagging fortunes. It is also working on attracting more players.

“The industry conversation has been dominated by a single topic, which is, ‘how do we get more golfers into the game?’” said Rand Jerris, senior managing director for public services at the USGA. If the industry has to support a growth in players from 25 million to 30 million or 40 million, it must develop a “sustainable ecosystem,” he added.

Jerris spoke on the USGA’s efforts to boost the financial well-being of golf courses on the Knowledge@Wharton show on Wharton Business Radio on SiriusXM channel 111. (Listen to the podcast here.)

The USGA has been using technology to help golf courses address one of their biggest challenges: water consumption costs. Jerris noted that water costs are rising 11% a year on average nationally, with the average golf course spending $600,000 a year on water and other maintenance. In drought-ridden California, some courses are spending more than $2 million a year on water alone. That squeezes the finances of the golf course.

One way to cut water costs is to determine if courses are maintaining and irrigating more acreage than needed. “The water issue will present the biggest challenge for golf in terms of sustainability,” he said. Indeed, in one program, the USGA puts GPS devices in the golfers’ pockets to track their play and discover which parts of courses are seldom, or even never, used. Limiting the maintenance and irrigation of the little-used portions of the golf course would save money. Twitter  “This is actual, factual data,” Jerris said. Without such data, courses would be maintaining all the greens at considerable cost.

Since 1983, the USGA has partnered with universities and invested some $50 million in research to develop commercially viable strains of turf grass that require less water, grow at slower rates or are less susceptible to diseases and pests, said Jerris. One strain is resistant to salt water. If it proves to be viable, golf courses could save a ton of money by using recycled water that tends to have higher salinity, he explained. The USGA is also banking on research into some types of buffalo grass that need to be mowed only twice a year, and survive being irrigated twice yearly as well.

The USGA is also banking on research into some types of buffalo grass that need to be mowed only twice a year, and survive being irrigated twice yearly as well.

There have been some gains over the past decade. U.S. golf courses have cut water consumption by 22%, Jerris said, citing data from a study by the USGA and the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Estimated savings from water bills stand at $150 million, he said, with similar declines seen in labor and chemicals costs. The USGA’s goal is to help golf courses further cut costs by 1% annually over the next decade — or 10% by 2025 — to save another $1.5 billion, he added.

Those will be much-needed savings. Since the 2008 recession, declines in disposable incomes have reduced the number of rounds played and green fees on golf courses, said Jerris. In turn, lower earnings have forced many golf courses to postpone capital improvement projects. But with a 3% uptick seen this year, he is hopeful that the slump has bottomed out.

Find the podcast and full article here.

By:  Larry Bohannan, The Desert Sun

November 16, 2015

As golf has struggled in recent years to find new golfers and retain existing players, there have been other questions for golf course operators such as: What can we do with all of this land if it’s not being used on a regular basis?

Last weekend in the desert, at least two courses showed there are uses for courses that not only produce some revenue but also bring people to their courses and perhaps expose them to the course or the game of golf itself.

Last Friday and Saturday, the Westin Mission Hills Resort in Rancho Mirage hosted Golf Fest on its Gary Player course. Golf Fest is not specifically a Coachella Valley event since the company that puts on the shows also sets up similar shows through the Southwest. The show combined golf club manufacturers showing off their latest equipment and letting attendees hit those clubs on the driving range with some non-golf specific vendors having their product displayed.

The Golf Fest saw the parking lot of the Player course overflowing, with cars spilling into the neighboring desert. That’s a tremendous thing for the folks at the course, not only because people were spending money at Golf Fest and perhaps in the club’s pro show, but also because people who took the time to go to the course might have a better idea of what the Players course is all about.

On Saturday, the second day of the Golf Fest, the city of Indio hosted a non-golf event on the driving range and practice facilities of it municipal course, The Lights. The California BBQ Championship saw dozens of food vendors selling ribs and chicken and pulled pork and other food to anyone who wanted to show up. There was also a competition among the pit masters.

The event was a huge hit, with one official saying a crowd expected to be about 2,200-2,500 had swelled to about 6,000. Hungry people who reached the course after 3 p.m. found several vendors sold out.

What was interesting was seeing one group of four younger people, perhaps about 20 years old or so, looking over at the 18-hole par-3 course as they were slowly walking to the exit. Is this where their friend tells them he comes to play this game, this golf? It looks nice, one of the women said. She might have to ask her friend what this is all about.

OK, that’s probably not the strong commitment for being a lifelong golfer. But perhaps it is a start. Or perhaps it is just a way for people who have no use for the game to have a bit more understanding of those who do love the game and its venues.

It’s likely that the United States Golf Association doesn’t consider barbecue competitions or golf shows as a way to grow the game, and the USGA may be right about that. But the people who are running golf courses want to sell golf but also have revenue streams. For years, car shows have been held on golf courses across the country, bringing people to the facilities. One of the earliest golf courses in the desert, the nine holes at the Desert Inn in Palm Springs, was annually the site of a big dog show for the village.

So a golf merchandise show and a barbecue competition would seem to fit right in. As much as we like to think golf courses are about golf, they are really about making some money. And it’s OK to look outside of rounds of golf for that revenue.

Find the full article here.

Thursday, October 22

12:00 – 3:00 PM

Southern California PGA Section

3333 Concours St., Bldg. 2, Suite 2100

Ontario CA  91764

Lunch at noon — Meeting  1-3 PM

This afternoon session is open to interested parties in and/or associated with the California golf industry which includes: golf course superintendents, golf professionals, course owners, architects, supplier, vendors, governmental and water agency representatives, as well as members of the golfing public.

Please RSVP your attendance to: csthomas@pgahq.com.

The meeting agenda will include the following:

• Sacramento Update and Legislative Update
• Water Update /Regulatory Update
• Status of Statewide Advocacy Coalition/Future Trajectory
• Member and Association Updates
• Growth of the Game