Renovated Course Seeks Senior PGA : Golf: Uniden hopes to attract a televised tournament to its Valencia course, but the competition is tough.

H.A. (Bud) Tenerani looked out over the third hole at the Valencia Country Club in Santa Clarita. A 237-yard par 3 with water curving around the rear of the green and with sand bunkers to the left, the hole is a confounding one for even the most experienced golfers.

“This is the kind of hole we hope the PGA will appreciate,” said Tenerani, the country club’s marketing director. “It’s a true test of golf.”

Tenerani hopes the golf course’s challenging holes will help it attract a senior Professional Golfers’ Assn. tournament. But despite the high regard golfers have for the 7,105-yard course--designed 25 years ago by Robert Trent Jones Sr., the dean of golf course architects--Valencia’s chances of gaining the status afforded to hosts of major tournaments are slim indeed.

“We don’t have any room for any new tournaments,” said Tim Crosby, director of communications and sponsor services for the Senior PGA Tour. The senior tour runs a popular series of tournaments for golfers age 50 or older, that often attract big-name pros such as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino.

Why is snaring a senior tournament so important to Valencia? “The P.R. and exposure,” Crosby said. “Exposure is what it’s all about from their perspective.”

Hosting one of the PGA tournaments would put the Valencia Country Club on national television and boost its prestige considerably for the course’s owner, Uniden Corp., a Japanese concern with about $700 million in sales that is best known for its cellular telephones.

Facing growing competition in its cellular phone business from Taiwan and Korea, Uniden decided several years ago to diversify. Valencia is its first venture into golf, but it plans to use the course as a stepping stone to the eventual ownership of several golf courses in the United States, Japan and the Philippines.

Ed Tanabe, Valencia Country Club’s general manager, said Uniden sees the Valencia course as an opportunity to establish its golfing reputation nationwide. That’s why, he said, “the reputation of this golf course is very important to us.” And so would be the imprimatur of hosting a senior PGA tournament, Tenerani said. “It’s a credential. It demonstrates you know what you’re doing,” he said.

Uniden Corp. purchased the Valencia course in 1985 for about $6 million from Newhall Land & Farming, a major real estate company that built the course in 1965 as the first piece in its master plan for the Santa Clarita Valley.

When Newhall owned the course, it was open to the public, and for two years after Uniden’s acquisition, it continued as a public course. But in 1987, Uniden turned the course into a private country club.

By that time, extensive renovations had begun, including the addition of a new, sleekly designed, 45,500-square-foot clubhouse, computerized irrigation system, concrete cart paths and expanded practice areas. All told, Uniden has spent about $25 million revamping the course.

In Japan, golf is something of a national mania and members of Japanese golf clubs sometimes pay $1 million or more to join. Uniden is one of several Japanese companies that have purchased golf courses in California in recent years. The prestigious Riviera Country Club, home of the Los Angeles Open, was purchased by Marukin Shoji Co. of Japan in 1988.

Because Uniden has invested heavily in the Valencia golf course, it will be quite a while before it has a profit to show for its overall investment. Tanabe wouldn’t discuss the country club’s profits, although he did disclose that it takes in about $4.5 million in revenues annually. Tenerani acknowledged that “the profit picture would be down the road a bit because of the capital expenditures.”

Valencia’s stiff membership fees should help. Individual members pay $100,000 to join, those who play only on weekdays pay initial fees of $30,000, and corporations pay $200,000. Monthly dues are $250 for regular members, $150 for weekday members and $500 for corporations. By comparison, the prestigious Bel-Air Country Club charges $100,000 for regular individual members and $350 per month, while the Riviera costs $25,000 up front for individuals to join and $370 per month.

Not that the Valencia Country Club will suffer if it doesn’t get a major tournament. In fact, it has temporarily frozen membership at 374 and its waiting list has about 60 names on it.

The 600-locker clubhouse was opened last September and contains a gourmet Japanese restaurant complete with sushi bar and Japanese-style grills. Though the restaurant is highly praised by many area residents (“It makes an elegant addition to the city,” said Santa Clarita Councilwoman Jill Klajic), not all the locals are thrilled by the stark, modern look of the building.

“It looks like a spaceship landing,” said Scott Newhall, the great-grandson of the founder of Newhall Land & Farming.

Possibly more important to prospective PGA tournament sponsors, however, is the Valencia area’s lack of sufficient hotel space to house the spectators that would be drawn to a large event. So Uniden is also planning to build a hotel near the golf course, on land that it also purchased from Newhall Land & Farming. Other hotels are in various stages of development by Newhall Land.

While the focus during the past few years has been on the renovations, Tenerani said he’s ready now to start a marketing push to attract a senior tournament. When PGA Tour officials come to the area in November for the Security Pacific Classic at Rancho Park and in March for a senior tournament sponsored by GTE at the Ojai Valley Inn & Country Club, Tenerani hopes to solicit some interest in Valencia as a future tournament site.

But Uniden faces an uphill battle in its quest to bring a senior tournament to Valencia. Alex Frankel, marketing director at the Ojai Valley Inn & Country Club, said Ojai’s landing of a senior tournament was “mostly just luck.” GTE was looking for a new site for its tournament, he said, and Ojai happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right pitch.

Valencia’s timing might not be so auspicious. Crosby of the senior tour said both the sponsors of the Ojai and the Rancho Park tournaments have no plans to move and there’s little likelihood that another tournament would be added in the Los Angeles area.

Valencia already hosts a few local tournaments, including an annual charity event sponsored by the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hosptial and another by the local Chamber of Commerce.

But Tenerani said Valencia’s goal will still be to attract a major event. “Our interest is to let the PGA and the senior PGA people know we exist and have a facility that conceivably could qualify,” he said.