GOLF / RICH TOSCHES : Upkeep at Knollwood Veering Off Course

The good news these days from the Knollwood Country Club in Granada Hills--the most heavily played public course in the Valley--is that not all of the fairway grass is dead and not all of the greens have turned brown.

The bad news, however, is that most of the areas of the course that are not parched are soggy and swampy.

Once a splendid golf course, Knollwood has deteriorated badly in the past several months. How bad is it? Well, let some of the golfers describe it.

“The condition of the course has approached the level of a cattle enclosure,” said veteran golfer Eugene McCarthy of Valencia.

And from Don Axelson, also a longtime player at the course and the president of the Knollwood Men’s Golf Club: “Basically, they have allowed Knollwood to go to hell. It is simply a disaster.”

And this from Larry Lee: “Knollwood is not in the best of conditions at the moment. It has been a few months since I played there, and it was acceptable then. But the problems have worsened since then.”

If it seems that Lee was a bit more tactful in his criticism than McCarthy and Axelson, well, there’s a reason. Lee is golf director for the Los Angeles County Parks & Recreation Department, where his job is to make sure the county’s courses are properly maintained.

The county last year considered turning over maintenance of Knollwood to a private golf course management firm, but the plan fizzled when the Parks & Recreation Department received no bids that it considered adequate.

In the ensuing months, very few things have not gone wrong at the course. On the first hole there is an area of standing water and mud extending nearly 75 yards from the green. It is impassable with a golf cart and nearly impassable without one. The best way to play the hole is while wearing your brother-in-law’s golf shoes.

McCarthy, who has played at Knollwood for 17 years, said a snorkel would be nice, too.

“At least five holes have had leaks in the sprinkler systems for so long that actual swamps have formed on the fairways,” he said. “I mean standing, filthy water. No one knows how deep it might be because no one has been brave enough to find out.”

And several of the tees similarly have been, let’s say, overwatered.

“Two weeks ago I played there and one tee was so wet, the ground so thoroughly soaked, that when you put a tee in the ground it could not support the weight of a golf ball,” McCarthy said.

Not everything at Knollwood is soaked. Some areas appear to have last seen water about the time that the niblick was a popular club.

“The greens are either dead or dying,” said Axelson. “We don’t even call them greens anymore. We call them browns.”

And if the alternating swamp-and-desert setting isn’t enough to make the golfers angry, the holes are. The holes were dug by a construction company installing an irrigation-control system during the past several months. The holes are deep and they are wide. And several of them, flush in the middle of fairways, have yet to be filled in.

“The No. 4 fairway has six excavations in a row,” McCarthy said. “Like someone dropped bombs.”

Lee said the problems have been related to ongoing construction.

“The installation of the new irrigation control system, a computerized system which tells the sprinklers when to come on and how long to stay on for, was a major project,” Lee said. “It caused some disruptions. And while converting the course from the old watering system to the new one, we have lost some control over the watering process, which has given us inconsistent watering. There are wet areas and there are dry areas.

“We know of the problems and we are addressing them. I have told people at Knollwood that the greens, which were subject to heavy fungus infestations this summer, will be back to normal in November and that all the other problems will be corrected before that.”

Going places: Angie Ravaioli of Moorpark remembers the day that she realized she might have a future in golf. It was the day that recruiters from Southern Methodist University came calling.

“When I was still in high school and someone was offering to pay for my college education if I would play golf for them, I knew I might be better than an average golfer,” said Ravaioli, who went on to play at SMU for four years.

For the past year she has played on the new women’s Players’ West Tour in California, Nevada and Arizona. And next week, Ravaioli, 23, leaves for Venice, Fla., for the first stage of the LPGA Qualifying School and a chance at a playing card for that lucrative tour for 1991.

“I know what the odds are,” she said. “I know how many people are competing for just a few spots. But ever since I started playing golf, I’ve always been able to compete against the players at each level. From junior golf to high school golf, then to college golf and now on this pro tour.

“I think I can compete on the LPGA Tour, too.”

Ravaioli has not exactly dominated play on the Players West Tour. In 16 events this year she has won just $2,744 and ranks 22nd on the money list.

“I’ve played well,” she said. “In several tournaments I had a good chance to win but then turned in one bad round out of the four that dropped me back. Golf is, I think, all mental and I’ve had a hard time keeping my concentration for a whole tournament. But I’m working on it.

“I’ve always dreamed of playing on the LPGA Tour. I think I have a chance.”