To borrow from Bobby Jones, there are two kinds of golf: golf for the very rich and golf for the rest of us. And they are not the same at all.
Lately they seem to be diverging even further.
A pandemic-era participation boom has led to an explosion of development at luxury private clubs and vacation resorts.
On one level, that’s undeniably good news. The more golf that is built – especially golf that is thoughtfully designed and responsibly managed – the better for the game.
But the wave at the top also shines a spotlight on a more complicated reality in the middle of the market.
Municipal golf is experiencing a renaissance in many places. Tee sheets are packaged. Long neglected courses have been supported by smart restorations. The demand is there. Elsewhere, however, the pressure is palpable.
As Jay Karen, CEO of the National Golf Course Owners Association, has noted, privately operated golf courses – especially in urban markets where land values and labor costs are high – are facing the toughest headwinds. They lack the subsidy of municipal support and the financial buffer of exclusive clubs. They live and die by the tee sheet.
What does that mean for the future of accessible and high-quality public golf?
That question came up on a recent episode of the Destination Golf podcast with architect Jay Blasi.
Blasi worked under Robert Trent Jones Jr. and played a crucial role in the design of Chambers Bay before launching his own company. He’s been busy lately. In the San Francisco Bay Area – his adopted home – he has led two of the region’s most intriguing public projects.
One of these is the Golden Gate Park Golf Course, now better known as the revamped Golden Gate Par 3, an artful, compact municipal layout tucked into San Francisco’s signature green space. The other is Poppy Ridge Golf Course, which Blasi redesigned for the Northern California Golf Association.
Poppy Ridge is an unusual case. Owned by the NCGA, the course benefited from an owner willing and able to fund a comprehensive redesign as part of a broader overhaul. The result is a revamped daily reimbursement facility that has kept prices relatively low. But as Blasi acknowledges, it’s not a model you see every day.
However, the Golden Gate Par 3 project may provide a more transferable blueprint.
That renovation was done in partnership with the San Francisco chapter of The First Tee, which raised private funds to finance the renovation without tapping into city coffers. Public area. Philanthropic capital. Community mission.
“It gives an idea of what might work,” Blasi said.
Blasi often cites an analogy shared by Bo Links, co-founder of the San Francisco Public Golf Alliance: Think of public golf the way universities operate. Universities of applied sciences do not run solely on tuition revenue. They rely heavily on donations from alumni and benefactors.
There is no shortage of parallel examples in the game.
In Augusta, The Patch at Augusta Municipal is being recreated with support from Augusta National Golf Club. In Philadelphia, Cobbs Creek Golf Course is undergoing a major revival, supported by private philanthropy. Ditto Normandie Golf Club in St. Louis. The list goes on.
But Blasi’s larger point is that the future of the game may depend less on choosing between “elite” and “everyday” golf, and more on finding ways in which the two can reinforce each other.
“The game of golf has been really good for a lot of people,” Blasi said. “Equipment companies. Fortune 500 companies. There’s probably some connection to golf in some form.”
To hear more from Blasi about his golfing life, along with his reflections on the state of the game, listen to the entire episode. here.
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