Westside Golfers Are Rising With the Birdies

They arrive long before sunrise, that rare time in Los Angeles when the freeways are clear and so, it seems, is the air.

The golf courses are enshrouded in darkness, making it difficult to see, let alone make par. But that doesn’t keep die-hard golfers from coming out as early as 4 a.m. in order to play a few early-morning rounds.

“Golfers,” said Burt Lippman, a starter at Rancho Park Golf Course, “are a strange breed.”

They might be strange, but they certainly are not rare. Through the first half of the 1980s, about 500,000 new golfers played each year. In 1986, the number of golfers increased by an amazing 2.7 million. In 1989, 24.7 million people played 474 million rounds of golf, according to the National Golf Foundation.

The year-round sunny weather makes Los Angeles a virtual golfer’s paradise. The combination of the weather and the longer days in summer are keeping the Westside’s three public golf courses as busy as ever.

“We’re so heavily played that they’re teeing off before the sun comes up and go until you can’t see anymore at night,” said Clyde Blake, the operations supervisor at Rancho Park. “They go from can’t see to can’t see.”

Even with partial closure of the course because of construction of a new irrigation system, golfers played 118,000 rounds at Rancho Park last year, roughly a tenth of the total rounds played on Los Angeles’ 13 golf courses. Rancho Park has a well-deserved reputation as one of the heaviest-played courses in the world.

The Westchester Golf Course, part of the 140-course American Golf Corp. chain, has been bustling as well.

“We’re busy year-round, but there’s a relatively incremental increase during the summer,” Westchester manager Chas Blaylack said.

Penmar, a nine-hole course in Venice, is also doing brisk business, according to operation manager Evans Butler.

“We’ve been averaging around 440 people a day,” Butler said.

Penmar’s smaller size and flat layout make it appealing to seniors, who make up most of the course’s regular players, Butler said.

During the wee hours of the morning, however, the golf courses are largely the domain of people such as Frank DaVanzo of Pacific Palisades, who stops by Rancho Park on his way to work, even if it means forsaking a few hours of sleep.

“It’s a small sacrifice,” DaVanzo said. “It’s nice to play early in the morning and be the first off the tee. And you get to see the sun come up . . . it’s very pretty.”

The only sacrifice for many golfers is financial. Green fees on weekends run about $15 for 18 holes. On weekdays, green fees run about $10.

No matter what the cost to golfers, the sight of a golf course at any time of the day is beautiful. The courses, which take reservations a week in advance, are booked solid.

“We’ve had people tee off as late as 7:30,” Butler said. “But it’s a public course; we can’t tell them to leave.”

For night owls, Westchester’s lighted course allows people to play until 11 p.m.

But the sheer number of golfers and their slow play is bogging down the courses as well.

“People are copying the pros more,” Blake said. “They’re walking off distances. It takes longer; they’re not able to be herded through anymore.”

Part of the attraction of Rancho Park is that it hosted the Los Angeles Open from 1956-1967 and from 1969-1972. It has also played host to LPGA tournaments, most recently the Ai Star Centinela Hospital Classic in 1988 and 1989. In October, the Senior PGA Tour will play a tournament at Rancho.

In some respects, the par 71 course is much like the game itself: seemingly simple, but challenging to the point of utter frustration.

“When you look at the course it doesn’t look that difficult, but no one seems to be tearing it up,” Blake said.

“Rancho’s not too long, but it’s difficult,” said Tim Gray, who’s been playing golf for 25 years. “It’s got trees, narrow fairways and it’s got every lie in the world--uphill, downhill, side hill, you name it.”

At 2,612 yards, the par 33 Penmar is long for a nine-hole course.

“It’s a pretty challenging little course,” Venice resident Will Dent said. “There’s not any water, so that makes it easier. But the lengths keep it challenging.”

Westchester is the only course with water hazards, and the 11th hole presents a 317-yard, par-four challenge, with the second shot over water onto an elevated green.

Golfers must also contend with the distraction of planes landing at nearby Los Angeles International Airport, but Blaylack said there are few complaints about the jet noise.

Penmar Park, which lies down a hill from Santa Monica Airport, has had its share of close calls with airplanes.

“Occasionally we’ve had planes land in the trees,” Butler said. “One landed on Rose Avenue.”

Golfers have gotten into trouble with their own flying objects--the occasional errant golf balls that break windows or dent automobiles. Nevertheless, Penmar’s neighbors might have to count their blessings.

“Originally this was supposed to be a city dump,” Butler said of the 28-year-old course. “They decided a golf course would look better than a dump.”

Aesthetic reasons aside, golfers everywhere plead that there is a need for more courses, but financial and real estate restraints have combined to make a bleak future for public courses.

“There are no plans for the department to build a new golf course in the city,” said Al Goldfarb, public information director of the Los Angeles City Department of Recreation and Parks. “There’s no money and there’s no area.”

So golfers continue to squeeze on to the existing courses. There were nearly 1.2 million rounds played on the city-operated courses alone last year, the ninth consecutive year the number of rounds has passed the million mark, Goldfarb said.

For many people, the easiest way to play is to go alone and round out a party that might be short a player or two.

“If you come out as a single you can get on in 15 to 20 minutes,” said Norman Perkins, who’s been playing for 40 years. “I don’t have to make a reservation any time.”

But golf is a social sport as well, the strolls down the fairways and between holes affording time to talk with friends in a leisurely manner. To some, the game is secondary to the company.

“I don’t care for golf too much, but I’m crazy about my husband,” said Joanna Vercruyssen, who took up the game after her husband bought her a set of clubs.

Whatever the reason, golf’s popularity has shown no signs of slowing down, exposing more and more people to the relaxing but sometimes maddening challenge of trying to hit a small white object at a stationary target.

“The game is addicting,” said John Lehman, a golfer for 30 years. “It takes your mind off of other problems momentarily.”

And there’s that hook to the game that keeps people packing the courses, no matter what the time or how long the wait.

“Usually it’s that one good shot you have a day that keeps you coming back,” Dent said.