For Some Golfers It’s Worse Than a Bogey: Privatization : Recreation: L.A. considers move to increase profits and upgrade courses. Players fear higher fees, fewer tee times.

Among the regulars at Los Angeles’ public golf courses, Mayor Richard Riordan’s helicopter tour quickly became the stuff of legend--and fear.

The city employees who tend the starter’s windows or mow the grass at the 12 courses were sure they were about to lose their jobs. Fanatic golfers were convinced that their beloved public links, such as those at Griffith Park--where duffers have held forth since before Colonel Griffith gave the land to the city--were about to become virtual private courses for the “golfing elite.”

And both groups whispered about how the helicopter trip had been arranged by a multimillionaire crony of the mayor, a man who had brought that most dreaded of concepts-- privatization-- to the golf courses of New York, Atlanta and other cities.

“Los Angeles is the last stronghold of public golf,” declared Marty Tregnan, the longtime leader of the golfers at Griffith Park, who at 76 still dresses up as a leprechaun to run a St. Patrick’s Day tournament. “They’ll do anything to get a foothold here. . . . Did you hear about the helicopter tour?”

Like most any tale passed around a circle, the one about the mayor and the helicopter was part fact and part fiction.

Riordan had flown over several of Los Angeles’ public courses and--for comparison’s sake--Pasadena’s privatized courses next to the Rose Bowl. He had commented on how the Pasadena grounds were a wondrous green while Los Angeles’ were duller and less attractive.

But Riordan had not been personally ferried by David Price, the founder and CEO of Santa Monica-based American Golf Corp., which began operating golf courses two decades ago and now runs 172 countrywide--most of them taken over from municipalities. And Riordan was not --at least not yet--talking about turning over all city courses to private operators.

Still, there was plenty of ammunition for the golf conspiracy theorists, who did not have to look far to see the writing on the clubhouse wall, the clear trend in public golf:

In February, Los Angeles County completed the decade-long privatization of its 20 courses, with officials saying the move had improved conditions--and profits. Last month, one of the last Orange County communities still running its courses, Anaheim, collected proposals from private firms to take over its two locations.

And even if they had not coptered together, Riordan was hardly unacquainted with Price, the crown prince of golf privatization. As young lawyers, they practiced in the same Los Angeles firm before leaving to pursue entrepreneurial passions, both becoming the sort of self-made men who believe that private enterprise can do it--almost any “it”--better than government.

As Price put it: “Where has government ever efficiently operated . . . a business similar to a restaurant, hotel or a golf course?”

In February, he wrote to Los Angeles officials, predicting that private management could earn the cash-strapped city up to $6 million a year more from its golf courses, which netted $2.2 million for city coffers last year.

“Why is L.A. the last major city to figure this out?” he asked.

The pleadings of an old friend, though, were hardly needed to persuade Riordan, an occasional golfer who is better known as a bicyclist and tennis player.

Privatization was a centerpiece of his campaign when he spoke even of leasing Los Angeles International Airport to pay for more police. In December, he declared that “dramatic budget pressure” called for other pilot privatization projects and listed a series under consideration--refuse collection, custodial services, information systems, parking enforcement, workers’ comp administration . . . and golf.

Riordan knew that some of the ideas--such as leasing the airport--were sure to draw flak. But he had no way of anticipating the fallout from his initial proposal for golf: to turn a single city course over to a private operator as a test, a practice round in privatization, so to speak. Last week, mayoral aides were working on what bureaucrats call an RFP, request for proposal, from private firms, with the course at Hansen Dam considered the front-runner for the pilot project.

The reaction?

Protest petitions at city courses. Flyers warning of “Increased Costs” and “Decreased Accessibility.” Golf activist Tregnan appearing before the City Council to state: “Let’s not turn our public lands into a playground for the gentry.”

It had one mayoral aide muttering in disbelief. “All we want to do is try it on one golf course!”

But the debate over the future of public golf in Los Angeles was on.

*

Well into the 1950s, golf was essentially a country club sport in the United States. Then came Ike and Arnie (golfing President Eisenhower and swashbuckling pro Palmer), and increasing popularity among the burgeoning middle class. By 1983, 61% of the nation’s 12,197 golf facilities were public.

Although it was long assumed that such courses would be sorry imitations of the rich folks’ clubs--the cow pasture analogy was common--there also were alternate images of public golf, especially in California. The famed Pebble Beach course was open to anyone with a checkbook and, in 1952, the city of San Diego unveiled Torrey Pines, with cliffside holes worthy of hosting the nation’s best pros.

Los Angeles had two showplace layouts: at Rancho Park, which still hosts a senior tour event, and the Wilson course at Griffith Park, near where settlers had hacked out the area’s first golf holes in 1847.

California also was where Price decided there might be a lucrative business in transforming the way public courses were run.

He started in 1969 in Yorba Linda, then looked nationwide.

“In the beginning,” he said, “we’d go to many cities . . . and nobody wanted to hear what we were saying, (that) under private operation the facilities will be better maintained . . . and more profitable to the municipality, which normally in those days was losing money (from golf).”

Part of the savings would come from replacing government employees with private workers not getting the same extensive benefits. But Price rattled off other arguments that foreshadowed the Ronald Reagan era: how government operation meant that it took three years to buy a new lawn mower, and you could not fire a groundskeeper who kept showing up drunk, and how with private enterprise, “we don’t make a lot of money when we don’t please the customer.”

His company put employees in uniforms with name tags, brought in new electric golf carts and “overseeded” fairways with rye grass, which is lush green in winter, when other grasses turn brown--a purely cosmetic touch that Los Angeles’ greenskeepers eschew because of expense, but which was exactly what drew Riordan’s eye as he flew above Pasadena’s courses.

The approach sold. In the last two decades, governments have steadily gotten out of the golf business and hired private managers such American Golf, which runs seven courses in New York City and 45 in California.

Under privatization, the courses remain open to the public and government officials continue to set greens fees, so the operator cannot charge unlimited amounts. The government gets a percentage of everything: 25% of golf cart rentals, perhaps, 8% of liquor, 6% of pro shop sales and such, usually with a yearly minimum.

For each of the county’s 13 full 18-hole layouts, its take ranges between $335,000 and $875,000. In the county, privatization was prompted by the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, which limited revenues from property taxes.

“Our (golf) system was losing money, $1 million (a year),” said Steve Duron, a county contracts manager. The first course was privatized in 1982 and the process completed two months ago, with Lakewood’s conversion.

In the last fiscal year, the county reported a $9.3-million profit from golf. Although not all contractors do an equal job, Duron said, the security of 30-year leases has given them incentive to make capital improvements, such as new irrigation systems, that cash-poor governments could not consider.

Ventura County officials report similar experiences after privatizing their two courses in 1983, going from subsidizing golf operations to earning $392,000 last year from one course in Ojai.

Pasadena took the plunge in 1986, when its two Brookside courses were “a piece of crap,” recalled Dick Freeark, a retired construction executive active in the men’s club there.

Eight years later, the complex by the Rose Bowl is “better than many county clubs,” noted Freeark, 73. Indeed, Brookside has become American Golf’s calling card, the place it takes potential customers to show what it can do.

But there is a price to the upgrading. Although Pasadena residents pay $20 to play on weekends, outsiders are charged $30--well above the flat $21 weekend fee charged everyone on Los Angeles County courses and the $19.50 on Los Angeles city links.

There is also “a lot of dissatisfaction with all the tournaments,” Freeark said.

He was referring to a frequent consequence of viewing golf courses as profit centers: The operators are tempted to recruit business and charity groups that want to stage tournament outings, in which golfers pay $5 to $10 extra per head, rent electric carts and have lunch at the clubhouse.

On a recent Friday at Brookside, 4 1/2 hours of tee times at the championship course were reserved for two tournaments.

The prize of Los Angeles County’s privatized courses--Los Verdes, atop the scenic Palos Verdes Peninsula--similarly is a hotbed of tournaments. Tee times have become so cherished that golfers sleep in the parking lot on Friday nights to secure a place at the starter’s window--to reserve a time for the next week.

*

Griffith Park on a recent morning was a melting pot of municipal golf. Several city firemen warmed up on the driving range. On the first tee were four retirees in their 60s who started playing together years ago when they all worked in the Downtown garment district. A Koreatown real estate man approached the starter’s window to pay for his weekly game with his father.

“Fifteen bucks is the best deal in town,” he told the starter, Dan Hill, referring to the weekday greens fee.

A bulletin board featured a notice (“Keep Public Golf Courses Public”) urging golfers to lobby City Council members, who would have to approve any pilot project in privatization.

Most everyone was aware of the debate at City Hall. Many golfers admitted that privatization had one appeal--maybe a company like American Golf could finally fix the greens on Wilson, where the crush of play has taken its toll, as has salt in reclaimed sewage water used by the city.

But the golfers fear the unknown. Creeping prices. All those tournaments.

And they have seen park workers scramble to improve the courses on their own. Impressive stone hole markers were recently added and the city supervisor for Griffith Park, Manuel Mollinado, vows to start rebuilding the greens.

Mollinado said golf course employees “see (privatization) as a very personal thing,” although they have been assured “the city would be very aggressively looking at (new) positions for them” if outsiders took over.

Many employees in the golf system are private contractors--in the restaurants, pro shops and driving ranges. But 132 full-time city workers and 240 part-timers continue to administer the courses, staff the busy starter’s windows and handle the extensive groundskeeping chores.

“It’s the almighty dollar,” said Ralph Hyde, a supervisor.

That theme was echoed a few days later when a tournament drew one of the area’s leading golfer-activists, Craig Kessler, spokesman for the 22,000-member Southern California Public Links Assn. He complains that golfers have had little say in the privatized Los Angeles County courses while greens fees have more than doubled over the past decade.

Though Kessler was encouraged by a meeting with mayoral aides, who seemed open to forming a advisory committee of golfers, he saw government setting a dangerous precedent when it “started talking about making money” off parkland. Golfers were an easy target, he said (“somehow golf is not politically correct”), but why stop there?

“Is government now going to charge real market rates for other open space activities . . . beaches, all parks and (nature) interpretive centers?” Kessler asked. “It’s one thing to talk about making them more efficient . . . but what’s next? Meters on the swings you push your kids on?”

Playing Through

Mayor Richard Riordan has proposed privatizing at least one of the 12 city of Los Angeles public golf courses. The courses would remain public, but would be run by private firms in an attempt to improve conditions--and make more money. Here is a look at the 12 courses, on which more than 1 million rounds were played in 1993:

1. HANSEN DAM

18 holes

Rounds played in 1993: 101,635

Revenue: $1,404,864

Profit: $428,740

2. WOODLEY LAKES

18 holes

Rounds played: 108,990

Revenue: $1,442,593

Profit: $536,642

3. BALBOA

18 holes

Rounds played: 85,282

Revenue (with Encino): $2,087,717

Profit (with Encino): $146,211

4. ENCINO

18 holes

Rounds played: 103,443

5. HARDING

18 holes

Rounds played: 95,880

Revenue (with Wilson): $2,785,869

Profit (with Wilson): $632,200

6. WILSON

18 holes

Rounds played: 105,212

7. ROOSEVELT

9 holes

Rounds played: 102,468

Revenue: $630,227

Loss: $94,833

8. LOS FELIZ

9 holes

Rounds played: 43,314

Revenue: $116,644

Loss: $10,284

9. RANCHO PARK

18 holes

Rounds played: 119,237

Revenue: $1,747,296

Profit: $430,528

10. RANCHO 9

9 holes

Rounds played: 66,384

Revenue: $295,615

Profit: $137,838

11. PENMAR

9 holes

Rounds played: 114,851

Revenue: $693,421

Profit: $147,321

12. HARBOR PARK

9 holes

Rounds played: 88,838*

Revenue: $477,840

Loss: $133,301

* Course was closed six months for irrigation improvements

Note: Revenue and profit/loss figures are for fiscal year 1993

SOURCES: City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, the Southern California Public Links Golf Assn. and the Los Angeles Municipal Golf Assn.