The property closed on December 31 as part of a two-step acquisition plan with Marin County, but a request for proposals to be issued on January 5 seeks to keep the 157-acre golf course running while the county decides how the property should be used in the future.
On December 29, 144 golfers participating in a daylong invitational tournament gathered to play a final round together on San Geronimo (Calif.) Golf Course, the 18-hole course that opened 50 years ago, and is now slated to be acquired by Marin County, the Marin Independent Journal reported.
Chris Bright, the assistant manager of the golf course, organized the event. He was stationed at hole No. 7 greeting the golfers, all of whom he knew by name, to tee off with each competitor one last time, the Independent Journal reported.
“This was called ‘the hopefully not the last hurrah’ tournament,” Bright said. “I was hoping for 100, but we have 144, a full field,” he said, noting that he had to turn some golfers away. “It just shows you the love that everybody has for this place, and seeing everybody here for some fun is pretty special.”
The Marin County Board of Supervisors in November voted unanimously to purchase the 157-acre course and convert most of it to parkland in a two-step process that involves the Trust for Public Land, the Independent Journal reported.
C&RB reported on plans for the property’s closure.
The county’s proposal has plenty of supporters who voiced enthusiasm for preserving the property from future development. Supporters also voiced a desire to protect endangered Central Coast coho and threatened steelhead trout in San Geronimo Creek and its tributary, Larsen Creek, the Independent Journal reported.
But the process has been challenged in a lawsuit filed by a group of more than 40 Marin residents calling themselves the San Geronimo Advocates. They are asserting that the county’s decision to purchase the golf course before doing an environmental analysis violates the California Environmental Quality Act, the Independent Journal reported.
In the meantime, Marin County Parks Director Max Korten said he hopes to issue a request for proposals on January 5 for a new operator to reopen the golf course and manage it while the county consults with the community and decides how the property should be used in the future, the Independent Journal reported.
“We are hoping to find someone,” Korten said. “We are trying to be relatively open and flexible and creative to find an operator, but one thing we really need is to protect the county from the liability of losing too much money on a potential operator.”
Previously, the county was unable to find anyone willing to assume the financial risk of operating the golf course, Korten said. It would cost the county an estimated $140,000 a year to maintain if it were left vacant, he said, and the county could instead use that money to pay an operator to run the golf course, the Independent Journal reported.
It’s a temporary fix that is giving golfers a gleam of hope that golf will be played at the San Geronimo course in 2018 and possibly after. Jerry Meral, an Inverness resident and director of the California Water Program of the Natural Heritage Institute, supports the purchase. He said the belief that the county is hostile toward golf courses is incorrect and that the county ownership of McInnis Park Golf Center is an example of that, the Independent Journal reported.
“Tastes change,” he said. “Twenty years ago bicycling wasn’t as popular as it is today, and now bicyclists are very influential.”
Supervisor Dennis Rodoni said he is looking forward to putting out a Request for Proposals to find an operator to run the course for the next couple of years. But, he said, “from the get-go we’ve said that golf is not a long-term viable business, and we’ve approached this deal from the point of view that we are not buying a golf course, but we are buying a land for its land value, the Independent Journal reported.
“It would be very telling whether an operator will come forth or not,” he said.
According to a writeup in the San Francisco Chronicle by sports columnist Ron Kroichick, the closure reflects wider struggles for the Bay Area golf industry.
San Geronimo becomes at least the eighth course to shut down in the area in the past two-plus years. Several courses in the East Bay closed at the end of 2015, including Sunol Valley (Calif.) Golf Club, Springtown Golf Course in Livermore, Pine Meadow Golf Course in Martinez and Grayson Woods Golf Course in Pleasant Hill. The Golf Club at Roddy Ranch in Antioch and Adobe Creek Golf Club in Petaluma followed in 2016 and early ’17, while Shadow Lakes Golf Club in Brentwood shut its doors pending a planned consolidation with neighboring Deer Ridge, the Chronicle reported.
“There’s definitely sadness, a little anger, and a lot of disappointment and frustration,” Bright said. “I hope it’s not a sign more courses are going to have trouble, but golf is definitely in a downward turn. A lot of courses are struggling right now.”
Business has declined steadily at San Geronimo over the past three years, according to Bright. The number of rounds played, which peaked at nearly 50,000 one year, is expected to total about 37,000 this year, the Chronicle reported.
Even so, the course, owned by East Bay businessman Robert Lee, who declined comment, generated positive cash flow every year until 2016-17. That counted as an achievement given San Geronimo’s remote location and the high cost of water for irrigation, the Chronicle reported.
But heavy rains last winter created poor playing conditions during the first three months of the year. Many golfers departed for other courses, and Lee and his partners put the course up for sale in February. Several golfers contended Lee’s ownership group didn’t do enough to promote San Geronimo, causing the drop in rounds played, the Chronicle reported.
“For four or five months, the grass was so long you couldn’t find a ball in the fairway,” Bright said. “I think that was kind of the final nail in the coffin. That’s when the owners finally decided it was time to go.”
Brendan Moriarty, senior project manager for the Trust for Public Land, said the group commissioned studies that found San Geronimo could not financially sustain golf in the years ahead. The trust also seeks to protect endangered Coho salmon and threatened steelhead trout in San Geronimo Creek, which weaves through the property, the Chronicle reported.
Moriarty and Korten envision a sprawling park, featuring a wide array of biking and hiking trails. Korten said county residents also have suggested everything from a fire station and sewer treatment plant to organic gardening and Frisbee golf, the Chronicle reported.
“We really want to vet all that out,” Korten said. “Thinking about all that, and the economics of golf, it seems unlikely it would stay a golf course.”
That’s why the past few weeks flowed with uncommon sights and sounds at San Geronimo. Signs in the clubhouse advertised a “Golf Shop Liquidation Sale,” with 40 percent off golf balls and 50 percent off other merchandise, the Chronicle reported.
Players lingered a little longer on the elevated tee at No. 10, relishing the panoramic view of the hills and trees in the distance. Curtis Hayden, who grew up in Marin and now lives in San Francisco, recently stood there contemplating the imminent end of more than a half-century of golf on the site, the Chronicle reported.
“I understand why people appreciate open space, but there really aren’t many reasonably priced public courses near where people live,” Hayden said. “It’s unfortunate.”
Or, as Bright said succinctly, “It’s a crying shame. It’s beautiful out here.”
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