Golf-Club Officials, Not Wanting to Be Rogues, OK Gallery

El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, site of next month’s Southern California high school golf championships, has suspended its policy forbidding spectators on the course, a rule that would have banned coaches, the news media and even the parents of the competitors from watching the event.

El Caballero was chosen earlier this year as the site for the California Intercollegiate Federation/Southern California Golf Assn. tournament, which will bring together more than 100 of the Southland’s finest prep golfers from the Central, Southern, San Diego and City sections for the June 11 competition.

The club’s general manager said the event organizer, the SCGA, was told of the club’s no-gallery policy at the time negotiations began and agreed to abide by it.

SCGA spokesman Bob Thomas said, however, that the SCGA did not know of the policy until the deal had been finalized.

“When the SCGA came to us about us hosting this event, we said ‘Fine,’ ” El Caballero general manager Seymour Chernov said Friday. “But we also told them at that time that we don’t allow galleries. So, from the start, the SCGA knew that. This is a private club and we don’t allow spectators. We haven’t had a public gallery at this course ever, since it opened 30 years ago.

“And the SCGA said, ‘Fine.’ ”

Thomas offered a different version.

“We didn’t learn of that club rule until later, after the agreement was made,” he said. “We did not know they had that rule.”

After the SCGA sent notices about the no-gallery rule to the high schools that will be represented at the tournament, both the country club and the SCGA received letters from irate parents and coaches. The club decided then, Chernov said, to waive its long-standing rule.

“We didn’t want to look bad over this,” Chernov said. “All we asked was that the SCGA provide us with the necessary insurance for such an event.

“The SCGA has sent us the insurance papers and they are being processed.”

Thomas, however, said that his organization has received no notification from El Caballero that the no-spectator rule has been waived.

“The bottom line is that we will allow spectators here for the event,” Chernov said. “And all of this was brought about by our being the good guys and changing our policy.”

Thomas said such rules will be checked out far in advance of future tournaments.

“We always try to play this tournament at a fine, private country club,” he said. “El Caballero certainly fits that category. We do that so the kids have that experience of playing at such a place.

“But no galleries would have been a first for this tournament, at least to my knowledge.”