Could also do no refunds for morning times only, cancellations allowed for any time after 12pm or something like that when there will probably be people will be on the waiting list ready to go
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I live in the Twin Cities and compared to most other places we have an abundance of public golf, and even better than that - plenty of munis - between the various municipalities we have more than a dozen. That said, going from being able to play generally whenever you want with less than three days notice to having to book exactly a week in advance has been a tough scene - and that’s not the even starting on Pace of Play.
It got so bad that the TWO munis 5 mins from my house (which are really fun and affordable places to play!) were so overrun that I joked the nearest Private to me had employed Crisis Actors as a form of marketing to increase the membership.
Obviously that is a joke, but I have since joined said private, joining an increasingly younger and NLU/SGS/TFE/TGJ contingent of members.
Shrink the game
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Appreciate everyone who helped with this. I’ve decided to turn this into a series. We’re gonna start with LA, which I think it’s indicative of some larger issues. Stay tuned. First pod should be out soon.
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While I was on the second green today at a Chicago muni, I saw two kids jump the fence and do this at the third tee
(The fence they jumped is not the one in the background)
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This might be a unique problem, but was talking to a buddy today about how often Memorial Park here in Houston is closed to the public.
It’s October - pretty much peak golf weather in Houston, and the course will only be open for public play 15 days this month.
- It’s closed every Tuesday already, which is fine. But…
- Next week it’s closed for unspecified reasons on Monday, Wednesday, an Thursday as well.
- It was also closed for 3 days during the week this week.
- On Monday the 28th it will close until November 15, because they need to overseed for the TOUR event in late March.
- If last year is a guide, the course will be closed for many days between november and february, and completely closed in March.
I appreciate that the Houston Open’s existence is why the course got the renovation it got, but I’m pretty sure the course is only open for truly public play for about 200 days a year. And of those days, a pretty high percentage of them involve an overseed that’s coming in or burning off, making for relatively poor conditions.
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And on a related note, those of us who live in the Houston area, but don’t technically have a Houston address, get to pay the tourist rate for our local muni. Yay!
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Don’t forget that of the 200ish days that Memorial’s open, it’s CPO. Not a problem if you don’t mind walking of course, but a lot of older players won’t go there since they can’t drive to their ball in the fairway or rough
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Sounds like a feature not a bug
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Appreciate everyone’s help with this idea. The first episode in this series is out tonight. I decided to focus just on Los Angeles for this one, but more to come. Keep sending ideas my way, good things happening and bad things happening.
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Okay. This part of the pod is blowing my mind. Sanity check:
Have you ever paid a bribe or tipped to get a preferred tee time at a public course?
- Yes
- I have not bribed, but am aware of the practice.
- Wait, what? For tee times? People grease palms for that?
- Emotionally damaged Steverino
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Loved the first episode, @KVV. It reminded me of a Malcolm Gladwell Revisionist History podcast in terms of production, structure, and story-telling, only (a) not based on wild conjectures and breathtaking logical leaps and (b) completely opposite perspective on the true value of golf to a community. Looking forward to the series, and maybe someday you can school Mr. Tipping Point!
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Great stuff, KVV.
I live in the UK and when I hear about things like the muni tee times thing in LA happening I used to think “that’s just the US, it would never happen here” and then Turnberry starts charging £1000 a round if you aren’t staying in the hotel and Carnoustie might start that as well and then I think about how far are we from public golf in the UK going to hell?
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I don’t know if I’m going to be able to listen because I’m so frustrated with the tee times situation to begin with
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It’s possible I was offered a bribe back 30 years or so ago, but honestly can’t remember, and if I had to guess I’d say no.
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This may be a bit harsh, but that guy near the end that was actually upset about Dave Fink and what he was doing…GTFOH with that nonsense.
On another note: LOVED hearing that they were cracking down on people that don’t live in the city anymore and were still hoovering up tee times. It is the worst-kept secret in the Boston golf scene that many people that don’t live in the city anymore still have the yearly membership for the city munis, and those memberships are very desired. They had a lottery earlier this year for 60 spots, and like 1500 people applied. However, the people that already have the membership just have it carry over year-to-year without any real checks on eligibility.
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Agreed. Being mad at the guy for selling some t-shirts felt like a bit much.
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A perfect encapsulation of public golf in LA. Lived there for a decade & tee times were never easy but anyone with half of a brain could see something nefarious was happening. My favorite personal anecdote was standing in the pro shop at Los Verdes on a Tuesday at 9AM & being told “Best I can do is 4pm”, literally 10 seconds after tee times went up on the web. Despite things also being a little shady, apparently, shoutout to Rec Park, El Dorado & Lakewood in Long Beach where I played 5x more than LA muni courses. I live in Austin now (I know, I know) and things aren’t much better, especially on weekends. Great work by @KVV & the NLU crew. Looking forward to hearing the next episode. Hoping you all address Pace of Play at Municipal courses & why rangers/starters refuse to enforce it.
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I think if you listen to Sean’s comments again, he’s pretty fair. He says he believes Dave’s intentions were pure in the beginning and that he might not have been the bigger person if he was suddenly getting famous and making money off uncovering it all. It was pretty important for me to get a Korean American perspective in here, especially considering the time all this played out, when Asians were being specifically targeted by racists for supposedly being responsible (as a race I guess? The logic of these idiots never make sense) for having caused COVID. I think Sean was fair in offering a nuanced counter opinion. And we always need to be aware, particularly as a white reporter, how dangerous it can be to make broad generalizations about an entire community, and make efforts to make sure that community has the opportunity to share a different perspective.
Sean’s part makes the story richer, IMO.
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I think he was trying to being mostly fair but I scared my dog with a guffaw when he used the term journalistic integrity. That’s a hand in the cookie jar phrase.
At no point listening to Dave Fink did I think journalist. Absolutely no offense meant.
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