Teed Off : Golf: Angry players want non-golfing residents ruled out of bounds at the posh Rancho Santa Fe course.

On clear mornings, Richard Todd of Rancho Santa Fe looks out across the golf course near his home and marvels at nature’s beauty. During sunrise walks with his two dogs, he savors the sight of lush green grasses and eucalyptus trees that hover like trusted sentries.

Most days, he says, he shares the wooded trails surrounding the famous Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club with other dog-strollers, joggers, horseback riders, power-walkers and cross-country runners.

And not a blasted golfer in sight.

“It’s fabulous,” Todd said. “It’s beautiful. It’s early in the morning, and there’s still not a golfer on the course. They’re all still in bed. They haven’t cranked up their motorized carts yet.”

For Todd and other Ranch residents, there’s new meaning to the Mark Twain definition of golf as “a good walk spoiled.” These days, there’s no love lost between golfers and other Ranch residents attracted to the picturesque course layout at the heart of the wealthy North County community.

Golfers say the non-players are simply out of bounds. In foolhardy fashion, they say, the joggers and walkers stray from the safety of nearby trails to tramp across greens and fairways, wandering dangerously close to the path of zinging, high-speed golf balls.

That’s not all. The non-golfers also fish for crawdads in the creeks and ponds that dot the course and even set up picnics near its short-cropped tees. Worse yet, their dogs dig up sand traps and leave their calling cards in the middle of freshly mowed fairways, golfers say.

Today, after repeated complaints from teed-off course officials, the Rancho Santa Fe Assn. will decide whether to restrict all non-golfers from the golf course’s playing surface during certain daylight hours.

“This is a golf course, not a public park for walkers, joggers, dogs and kids,” said Ken Swanson, the golf club’s greens chairman, in charge of maintenance for the 135-acre course. “That’s what the 30 miles of trails all around the ranch are designed for. But golf courses are for golfers.”

The debate strikes at the heart of a touchy ownership issue in Rancho Santa Fe, where residents have an “undivided interest” in their golf course--much as condominium dwellers share ownership of their grounds.

Golfers, however, pay an additional $25,000 initiation fee for playing rights at the golf club, where $3 million was recently spent to upgrade the grounds, officials say.

Non-golfers insist they have equal rights to the area--whether it’s for walking their dogs or just sitting on a bench and watching the flowers bloom.

“That course is our open space,” said resident Dorothy Reich. “It’s a beautiful place for doing just about anything. And I don’t see why the golfers should have it all to themselves.”

Residents such as Richard Todd say the golf course tug of war signals something deeper--the desire of a small group of golfers--the newest regime at the golf club--to run the whole show in Rancho Santa Fe.

“They’re creating a new Yugoslavia here,” said the 77-year-old former government consultant, who takes daily walks with his two dogs--a Siberian husky named Wolf and a black Labrador he calls Buddy.

“All these people want to do is argue. You go to that course, and you think you’re watching some Three Stooges movie. You name it, they argue about it--the furniture, the food and the golf course. And they blame everything on the non-golfers.”

Todd, a 40-year Ranch resident, said this isn’t the first time that golfers have tried to banish the rest of the community from their course, which was built in the 1920s. One effort ended years ago when they found that a proposed fence around the club would have cost $2.3 million, he said.

“Every few years, there’s a new Messiah, a new Moses, who appears and says he’s going to lead these golfers through the parted waters,” Todd said. “The new group wants to change everything. Then they disappear into the horizon. They die of heart attacks. And a new group moves in.”

Todd said the most recent effort to restrict access to course grounds is no less unreasonable. Few non-golfers actually walk on the course, for the most part sticking to trails that line its perimeter, he said.

But the golfers have chosen to make an issue out of a tiny minority--like the elderly man who once picnicked with his nurse on the side of one fairway “until he recently went home to New York to die,” Todd said.

“This whole thing is a lot of yakking about nothing from people without enough to do--people who simply have too much time on their hands,” he said. “Nobody minds their own business. I don’t think that these wealthy retirees who get occasional blood transfusions from Adolf Hitler should be allowed to run this place.”

Dick Scuba, an attorney and Ranch resident, called the debate “one of the silliest disagreements I’ve ever heard of.” The bottom line, he said, is that the golfers are trying to take more authority over course operation.

Swanson doesn’t deny that claim. But the country club’s 600 members and their families are by no means an elitist minority, he said. Instead, they make up more than 40% of covenant residents, representing “by far and away, the biggest single group of people who live here.”

Ironically, he said, a club that recently underwent millions of dollars in renovations is literally going to the dogs.

“They do damage to the sand traps. And they’re simply not sanitary--it’s no fun to see dog crap all over a recently renovated golf course,” Swanson said of the pets.

“Sure, most of these Ranch residents pick up after their dogs. And, if you believe that, I have a bridge I want to sell you. I’m just tried of seeing these owners standing around, pointing and laughing at what Fido has done.”

Jim Ashcraft, president of the association’s board of directors, said the debate stems from the unprecedented growth at the Ranch--and its golf course.

“Ten years ago, golfers played maybe 10,000 rounds here,” he said. “This year, they’ll play more than 55,000 rounds. That’s a lot of golf.”

He denied that the controversy signaled any local power struggle.

“It’s just dangerous for people who don’t play golf to be out there,” he said. “That’s what this is all about. It’s about safety and liability.”

Although he acknowledges that no non-golfer has yet to be zapped by a ball, Swanson says the walkers and runners are nonetheless taking a great risk.

“It’s bizarre. It’s crazy,” he said. “If most people ever stopped to think about it, they’d realize how much damage a golf ball can do. Look at public courses like Torrey Pines. They don’t let non-golfers on the course because it’s dangerous. Elitism has nothing to do with it.”

The biggest problems, he says, have come from “the die-hard dog walkers” to “the sitting ducks” who picnic in the fairways. And from people like the woman who refused to leave an area beneath a tee from which golfers were hitting.

“She flatly refused to leave,” he said. “She said she was a Ranch resident. And she had rights to be right where she was. And so we hit our shots over her head.”

Walt Eckard, association manager, said the golf course’s board of governors first requested a policy ruling from the association three months ago on the presence of non-golfers. After referring the matter to the association’s parks and recreation commission for a recommendation, the issue was to go before the seven-member board for a vote this morning, he said.

A compromise solution, he said, would be to restrict non-golfers from course fairways, greens and rough areas from about 7:30 a.m. until the day’s play concludes.

Dorothy Reich, who each evening walks her pet poodle, Amigo, near the course, said there will be hard feelings no matter what the outcome.

“If the golfers get their way, it’s going to anger not only us but a lot of non-golfing residents who don’t even walk along the course,” she said.

“Because we’re all going to resent being told we can’t use that course. Who are those golfers, the association, or anyone else to tell us we can’t use that beautiful place?”