Golfers Get a Country Club Vibe at Public Course Prices

Whenever a high-end public course opens in Orange County, its operators claim to be offering golfers a country-club experience for a day.

Now Coyote Hills is taking it a step further by offering memberships at its public course.

For an initiation fee of $10,000--$4,000 for weekdays--and monthly dues ranging from $225 to $375, golfers can have unlimited access to the tight, 6,500-yard course in the hills above Fullerton.

The course says it has signed up 34 members, some of whom moved over from an association that charged people a yearly fee to play the course. Allen Prince, a retired Orange resident, joined that association three years ago and says it and the new program have helped him beat the high price of the sport. Regular rates at Coyote Hills are $85 weekdays and $105 weekends.

“I play about three times a week,” Prince said. “If you do the math, you can see it doesn’t cost me much to play golf.”

Prince pays monthly dues of $225 for unlimited play Monday through Friday, meaning his cost, not including the initiation fee or the $10 cart fee, comes to less than $20 a round for the approximately 12 rounds he plays a month.

“It’s wonderful,” said Prince, who said the arrangement is a bargain. “The people are tremendous and they treat us like we are country club members. It’s not a public course atmosphere.”

The membership also has other benefits, including being able to make tee-time reservations 14 days in advance, fee discounts for guests and reciprocal play at more than 100 public and resort courses managed by American Golf.

It’s similar to what a member would expect to get at a country club, without monthly minimums for food and beverages. Mike Hurd, Coyote Hills’ general manager, said the course should be able to attract members from waiting lists at local private clubs.

“This will never be a private country club,” Hurd said. “We are going to pull in 150 or so members and allow them to experience it.”

RANGE FINDER

North Orange County golfers will get an enhanced practice facility next week when Golfer’s Paradise in Fullerton opens its double-deck driving range.

The upper deck is expected to open Monday or Tuesday, facilities manager Don Curo said, completing a renovation project that has limited play at the range since October.

“We are itching to get this thing finished and opened,” Curo said, “so we can get the business back.”

The enhancement will nearly double the number of hitting stations, from 35 to 60, and give golfers a shady place to practice during hot Fullerton summers.

The range, formerly known as the Fullerton Golf Training Center, sits in the drainage channel in a hilly area below the Brea Dam. The center, at 1600 N. Harbor Blvd., is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and features an 18-hole putting course designed by Ted Robinson Sr.

LPGA LANDS

The LPGA Tour this week found a home for its City of Hope Classic, and it won’t be in Orange County. The event will be played April 12-15 at Wilshire Country Club.

Two country clubs with a history of hosting LPGA events, Mesa Verde in Costa Mesa and Los Coyotes in Buena Park, were contacted about taking the event. Los Coyotes declined and Mesa Verde hadn’t yet given an answer.

It had appeared that the women’s golf tour might bypass Los Angeles when organizers of the Los Angeles Women’s Classic, played last year at Wood Ranch Golf Club in Simi Valley, said the tournament would not be played this year but might return in 2002.

NOTEWORTHY

Golf consultant Dick Thorman has been given the 2000 President’s Award by the Southern California PGA. Thorman, 69, an industry analyst who has helped the County of Orange develop plans for public courses at Mile Square Park, the El Toro marine base and Strawberry Farm, played a part in developing the SCPGA’s two new courses at Oak Valley.