SDMGA: Letter to City Golf Staff expressing deep concerns in the direction the staff appears determined to take Torrey Pines and their lack of transparency regarding golfing matters
We are concerned in the direction the city golf staff appears determined to take Torrey Pines: further away from resident-focused golf and further toward a playground for the wealthy country club set and wealthy professional golfers.
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Hi Mark,
We are writing to express the deep concerns of SDMGA in the direction the staff appears determined to take Torrey Pines: further away from resident-focused golf and further toward a playground for the wealthy country club set and wealthy professional golfers. A SDMGA representative was unable to attend the last two meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee, but we have reviewed the slides on the website. Unless we have missed something, there do not seem to be any concrete plans to reduce any resident rates at Torrey in order to remedy the losses in resident play as a result of the drastic increases in greens fees from 2006 to 2011 (with the possible exception of exploration of “super twilight” times on the North, unspecified internet tee times, and unspecified “yield management” techniques.)
The Staff focus seems to be on getting more non-residents to play, attracting professional tournaments which have historically been subsidized by Torrey golfers through the Enterprise Fund, and building additional facilities such as the tournament support building to which the 1368 signers of the original SDMGA petition are strongly opposed.
Please pass along all of the comments in this email to the Ad Hoc committee. We urge the Ad Hoc Committee to stand up for Torrey Pines as a resident-focused municipal golf course and modify the staff vision which appears to be to promote high-end, non-resident play over play by the ordinary citizens of San Diego for whom the golf courses were built. If the Ad Committee approves the staff recommendations as is, it will be helping to deliver a serious wound to municipal golf at Torrey Pines.
We are also including the attachment to our October 18 email which made recommendations which have to date have not been addressed in Committee meetings. We hope these recommendations and any others which seek to make golf affordable for resident golfers will receive some attention at the December 1 meeting or meetings thereafter. We plan to attend the December 1 meeting and will be listening closely to whether the voices of the resident golfers are being heard. We hope that each of the concerns listed below will receive separate attention at future meetings so that they can be carefully considered.
General Concerns:
Lack of a Mission Statement:
The staff proposals do not state what the overall purpose of golf operations at Torrey Pines is. From reading the slides, it appears the mission is to generate as much revenue as possible, turning Torrey into a destination resort rather than a municipal golf course. The goal should be keep Torrey a resident-focused, affordable municipal golf course. Non-resident play and tournaments should serve the basic goal of preserving affordable municipal golf at Torrey. This is a public park, not a country club or a private business.
Lack of Supporting Data:
The staff report is lacking in critical data. A business-like report would set realistic revenue goals based on the mission statement and based on the actual needs of Torrey Pines. The report would then set fees to achieve these revenue goals. No actual revenue goals are stated and much of the revenue generated at Torrey Pines is diverted to other courses e.g. providing operating revenues to Balboa to the tune of over $1 million per year, $4 million to an irrigation system at Balboa; possible new clubhouse at Balboa; capital improvements at Mission Bay. The previous Business Plan was based on making Balboa self-sustaining. Instead, Torrey is subsidizing golf at Balboa without any commensurate return to Torrey golfers who are paying the fees that support Balboa.
In addition, none of the Torrey data is broken down by courses. There is not adequate transparency here. We suspect that residents are already getting much less than 70% of the rounds at Torrey South and this may be why the 70-30 ration is portrayed as the total rounds on both courses instead of calling attention to the highly different percentage of rounds played on the South vs. the North.
Finally, the course comparisons made to justify the rates at Torrey are misleading. First, they seem to assume that the rates at Torrey should be comparable to for-profit companies and high end golf courses. To be sure, we must make certain that Torrey rates are not so high that playing comparable for-profit courses is cheaper, but to have affordable municipal golf does not mean pegging them to for-profit rates. Moreover, the comparisons do not include the fact that Torrey greens fees do not include a cart, seriously understating the cost of golf at Torrey by $20-40 per round.
Specific Concerns:
Undermining the 70-30 ratio.
Without citing any data to support the recommendation (other than anecdotal statements that individual staff have had to turn away non-resident golfers who wanted to book a round at Torrey without any documentation of numbers), the staff makes two recommendations which are aimed at reducing the percentage of rounds played by local residents:
“Consider updating the 70%/30% utilization to a tee time access percentage.”
“Discuss releasing un-booked resident tee times.”
The 70-30 ratio was set up by the City Council to assure that the resident-focus of golf at Torrey was not lost to non-residents whose dollars could bid local golfers off the courses. Rather than change the requirement, staff should be looking for ways to assure that residents play 70% of the rounds at their public park. SDMGA opposes changes to the 70-30 ratio unless greens fees are reduced to allow local resident golfers fiscal access to Torrey. The current golf rate structure has resulted in approximately 10,000 resident rounds less a year than in FY 2006. The evidence is pretty clear that the drastic increases in resident fees (doubling North rates and tripling South rates from FY 2005 to FY 2011) has been largely responsible for decreases in resident play. Unless rates are lowered for residents, the result will be far fewer local resident golfers will play and rounds will go to non-residents, precisely the result that the 70-30 ratio was designed to avoid.
Failure to Re-evaluate Torrey Greens Fees which are driving resident rounds away from Torrey Pines:
As noted above, resident rounds at Torrey are down over 10,000 rounds per year during the reign of the previous business plan and its drastic increases in fees. This should be a cause of alarm for a staff focused on supporting affordable municipal golf at Torrey. Instead, “the staff feels that golf rates in general are in line at this time.” The Torrey greens fees, particularly on the South, are so high that we are losing local rounds. To the extent that yield management techniques and internet tee time purchases are aimed at resident golfers, this could help promote more resident play. This should be the goal of fee adjustments. Unless and until we get rates more affordable for local golfers, the plan to base tee allocations on booking access rather than rounds played is unacceptable. For additional ways to lower fees to residents, see our email to Mark Marney of October 18 which proposes making Friday a weekday, a resident just before twilight discount and other yield management techniques.
Proposal to Subsidize Additional Professional Tournaments:
As set forth in our October 18 email, the Enterprise Fund subsidized the US Open (a $100 million revenue center for the USGA) to the tune of $9 million (including course renovations). The Farmers/Buick Open has been subsidized for years by not only failing to pay published rates in the business plan for the course, but not even paying cost-recovery for the greens fees lost during the tournament. Staff justifies seeking additional tournaments as necessary to maintain a world-wide reputation. SDMGA submits that Torrey’s reputation has been made by years of the San Diego/Buick/Farmers Open and that the marginal benefit of additional tournaments is questionable. Moreover, the interest in tournaments and tournament facilities is the tail of non-resident rounds wagging the dog of affordable municipal golf. Additional tournaments (and a tournament support facility) are being proposed as a way of generating more interest in non-resident rounds. What do these tournaments do for affordable municipal golf? They are antithetical to local golfers’ interests. The desire to get a U.S. Open led to the renovation of the South Course which, under present projections, costs local golfers at least 12,740 rounds (See Staff Report projecting 82,400 rounds on the North and 64,000 rounds on the South; prior to the renovation, there were an equal number of rounds available on both courses; thus, there are 18,400 less rounds played on the South of which 70% or 12,740 should be resident rounds). The Open led to the closing of the North Course to 18-hole play for 7 months and the course is still feeling the effects of using it for a concession stand and driving range. Money used to subsidize the Open could have gone to lower greens fees. Without the renovation of the South and the U.S. Open, fees could have been $12 less per round over the past five years. The Farmers has been subsidized and it is time that it pays at least cost recovery and not be allowed uneconomic “in-kind” payments which take money out of the Enterprise Fund and give no benefit to local residents.
Proposal to Build a Tournament Support Building
The proposal to re-start discussion of the Tournament Support Building is resurrecting a proposal that was strongly opposed by the local golfing community in 2006. In the last version of the Tournament Support Building proposal, the Century Club, an organization that discriminates in membership on the basis of wealth (at last report, you have to give $1,000 and raise $15,000 to be a member of the Century Club; the thousands of “volunteers” who marshal tournaments make financial contributions for the privilege of helping with the tournaments but are not offered membership in the Century Club) was given a permanent office in the building. SDMGA strongly opposes the wealth-discriminating Century Club being given office space in a public park. Beyond that the Tournament Support Building is an infrastructure expense which does not give benefits to the daily resident golfer, but is paid for out of greens fees paid by Torrey golfers. Without a Tournament Support Building, greens fees could be that much lower.
Respectfully submitted,
San Diego Municipal Golfers’ Alliance
John Beaver
Joe Burwell
Paul Spiegelman
Co-Founders