A Public Solution For A Private Passion : Plush Course at Pelican Hill Goes Beyond Dollars and Sense

It’s not hard to understand why a golfer would pay $100 to play the Ocean Course at Pelican Hill Golf Club once. After all, everybody deserves to be a big shot for a day.

Courteous young men take your clubs out of the trunk and park your car. You can see the ocean from every one of Tom Fazio’s dramatic holes, carved into the canyons and bluffs north of Crystal Cove. And it’s not only beautiful, it’s fun. The par-70, 6,634-yard layout is challenging but playable. This is no Pebble Beach. A 15-handicapper on an average public course can break 90 without cheating.

What’s hard to understand is why a lot of people are spending more on Pelican Hill greens fees in a month than a lot of golfers paid for their clubs. At $125 a pop (for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays) and $95 Monday through Thursday, Pelican Hill can be an expensive habit. A weekend round each week for a year would cost about $7,000.

Question: Don’t people with this kind of money belong to private clubs?

Answers: (A) Yes. (B) Not anymore. (C) Both of the above.

“Most golfers join a private club for one reason, recognition,” said Kathy Bryant, director of marketing for Western Golf Properties, Inc., which runs the course. “Pelican Hill has that same level of recognition. It’s a wonderful course in an incredible setting.”

The Irvine Co., developers of Pelican Hill Golf Club, had high expectations for the high incomes in South County when they opened the $30-million seaside spectacle on Nov. 16, 1991. They worried that the downturn in the economy would hurt, but the recession might have helped.

Mercedes-Benzes and Porsches are pulling into the parking lot almost as fast as the valets can stow them.

“Our forecasts were always optimistic, but we’ve been full, or very close to it, since the day we opened,” Bryant said. “There are a lot of people who pay a lot of money for private clubs. I guess some are re-examining the way they spend that money.”

It wasn’t just a matter of money for Alan Bartz, an Irvine attorney who recently terminated his membership at Pacific Golf Club in San Clemente and now plays often at Pelican Hill.

“Obviously, the setting here is spectacular, and I was tired of the drive up there,” he said. “This course is also very impressive from a design standpoint. Fazio has done an excellent job of making it both beautiful and challenging. I understand he’s very choosy about his sites, and you can understand why he chose this one.

“And you can play here without the big down payment or monthly dues or food minimum or locker fees associated with a private club. The only thing you really lose is the camaraderie that goes with knowing the people at your club. But this is as first-class as it gets anywhere. There’s no better place to play with clients or friends.”

That, Director of Golf Jay Colliatie will tell you, was the whole idea from the inception. It was always going to be first-cabin. And the same will be true for the Canyon Course, which is scheduled to be under construction soon and ready for play by 1994.

Sod was laid in the fairways of the Ocean Course instead of seeding. It now looks as if velvet carpet had been installed. Miles of stucco and stone walls with bursts of purple bougainvillea spilling over the tops were constructed. Almost 5,000 mature trees and 100,000 plants and shrubs were planted.

A full-time horticulturist is on the course looking at leaves and bark all day. There’s a computer-driven sprinkling system that automatically adjusts to the weather.

And how about some instant tradition? Fiberglass-reinforced concrete was used to recreate natural rock outcroppings of the nearby coastal hills. And loads of pine needles were trucked in and spread around the bases of new trees to create the appearance of century-old groves.

The Pelican Hill experience goes beyond lush landscape and stunning seascape, though. The course is also user-friendly.

From the white tees, it plays 5,883 yards with a slope rating of 119; from the blue tees, it’s 6,305 yards and has a 130 slope rating; from the gold tees, designed primarily for professional competition, it’s 6,634 yards and has a 138 slope rating. Yardage from the ladies’ red tees is 5,240 with a slope rating of 121.

Playing from the gold tees can dramatically change the nature of a hole. No. 4, for instance, is 148 yards from an elevated blue tee box and 135 from the whites. Trek down to the gold tees and you’re looking at a 171-yard uphill shot.

All in all, the Ocean Course at Pelican Hill is a fair--and often forgiving--course. You begin by feeling pampered, but hang on for a bumpy ride starting about hole No. 6 and lasting until you make it back to the building that serves as an interim clubhouse during construction of a 35,000-square foot, Santa Barbara-styled facility.

You head off for the first tee and reach a “second starter” who stops to inform you of some basic ground rules and makes sure you don’t drive up while the group ahead is teeing off. Only your group gets to see your nerve-racking first shot, so teeing off on No. 1 at Pelican Hill will never make you feel as if you’re standing nude in the mall.

Fazio, who has employed a number of funneled fairways at Pelican Hill, has built steep banks around the first fairway so even a hook or slice almost always rolls down into the fairway, a welcome opening touch.

“This course allows a golfer to loosen up a bit on the first few holes, and then says, ‘You better be ready,’ ” said Colliatie, who was general manager at PGA West before signing on at Pelican Hill.

Even from the blue tees, No. 6 is the longest-playing 396-yard par four you ever want to see with a tee shot over a canyon. No. 8 is a 550-yard par-five with trees lining both sides of a tight fairway. The ninth and 10th holes are the Nos. 1 and 2 handicap holes. Nine is a 434-yard par-four into the wind to an elevated green; 10 is a 440-yard par-four into the wind. Reach either of those in two and you’ve hit two very good shots.

There’s a chance to pick up a par or even a birdie as the course snuggles up to the ocean on Nos. 11, 12, 13 and 14--if you can keep your eyes off the scenery and look at the ball--but it’s back to business down the stretch. The 385-yard, par-four 15th requires two very accurate shots, and No. 17 is a 547-yard par-five with a green protected by an enormous bunker complex.

Fazio also built in the quintessential it-ain’t-over-till-it’s-over finishing hole. The tee box of the 418-yard, par-four 18th is chiseled into a canyon wall and the drive must carry 175 yards (from the blue tees) to clear the chasm and make the fairway. Then the hole doglegs back to the right, forcing golfers to hit over the winding canyon again .

Kim and Connie Stonier of Dana Point had never played at Pelican Hill before heading out for the first tee on a breathtakingly clear morning last week. They were celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary.

“It’s a special day, so we figured we would give it a shot,” he said. “This looks like one of those courses where you can play lousy and still enjoy the scenery.”

If bad shots and good fun can ever cohabit, Pelican Hill might be the spot.

Sometimes you play a course and have a hard time remembering any part of the landscape, except maybe the contour of a green where you dropped in a long birdie putt . . . or a maintenance shack that got in the way of a duck-hook tee shot.

It’s difficult, however, to forget the blue-and-green visions of the Ocean Course:

--The tee at the par-three seventh is a world-class photo opportunity. A glistening lake, outcroppings of beige rock and white-sand bunkers backlit by a blue slash of sea. It’s confusion of the senses.

--Holes 11, 12 and 13--Ocean Bound, Pelican’s Nest and Double Trouble (all the holes have names)--hug the Pacific on the ocean side of Coast Highway. The surf drums in your ears. Salt air fills your lungs. And nobody ever asks, “Which way is the ocean?” while trying to read a putt.

--You might not know where to look first from the seventh tee, but the view from No. 16 is the picture of simplicity. Across a canyon on the point of a knoll sits a lone Toyon tree and the flag silhouetted by the ocean. It looks like the last golf hole on the end of the earth.

“This course is something very special,” Colliatie said, watching a pair of sailboats inch across the horizon. “For the people who can afford it, it’s a jewel.”

Pelican Hill Facts

Course: Ocean.

Designer: Tom Fazio.

Par: 70.

Yardage and Slope Ratings: Gold tees, 6,634, 138; blue tees, 6,305, 130; white tees, 5,883, 119; red tees, 5,240, 121.

Regular greens fees: $125 Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holidays; $95 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Twilight greens fees (beginning at 4 p.m.): $60 Friday, Saturday and Sunday; $50 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.