Keeping an Eagle Eye on Clubs

The golf pros agree: You should size up the green closely, address the ball squarely and hold onto your club firmly.

Very firmly, if you’re playing golf in parts of the San Gabriel Valley.

A rash of golf club thefts at public courses there is leaving authorities frustrated and golfers downright furious.

On Friday, thieves even struck one course during a Los Angeles Police Department tournament and stole more than $2,500 worth of clubs from officers.

Arcadia police responded by mounting a weekend sting operation at the Santa Anita Golf Course. No arrests were made, however.

“I think it’s an organized group,” said William Hsu, an Arcadia manufacturer of sunglasses who lost clubs valued at $6,500 when he left them outside the Santa Anita course pro shop while he went inside to buy balls.

“I came back outside [and] it was gone,” Hsu said of his bag of Japanese-made Honma clubs. “I’ve replaced them. I’m keeping an eye on my clubs now.”

“When I saw the look on William’s face I thought he was having a heart attack,” said Ed Howard, manager of the pro shop. “It’s terrible. And it’s getting worse.”

With their well-manicured fairways and greens and gentlemanly rules and course etiquette, golf links would seem to be the last places to find unsavory behavior.

But golfers say theft has always been an issue at public courses, where storage lockers are usually unavailable and strangers come and go at will -- unlike country clubs and other private courses.

The proliferation of expensive specialty clubs and other high-end equipment has made golf courses attractive to grab-and-run thieves who blend in easily with casually dressed golfers focused on tee times and club-swinging technique, golf pros and authorities said.

High-end and hybrid clubs are especially attractive targets.

“There’s a cult feeling to some specialty clubs, like the Scotty Cameron Titleist putter,” said Tim Terwilliger, head pro at Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena.

Eight of those $250 putters have been stolen from golfers’ bags over the last month, Brookside staffers said.

The pro shop at the city-run course now keeps its Scotty Camerons locked up. But even that didn’t stop a thief three weeks ago from grabbing two $800 sets of TaylorMade irons from a display rack. With two shop employees in pursuit, the thief ran to a waiting car and escaped.

“All of the courses are communicating together about the theft problem,” Terwilliger said. “We’re recommending that people bring their clubs into the pro shop rather than leave them outside. We want people to stay and shop and feel comfortable, not be worrying that someone’s outside taking their bags.”

Clubs are not allowed in Brookside’s restaurant and bar, however. Les Kovacs and Todd Schlopy had to leave their gear unattended on an outdoor patio after a match Tuesday.

“This is the exact place that one of our friends left his clubs when he went in for a quick drink,” said Kovacs, a film lighting director who lives in Sherman Oaks. “When he came out, they were gone.”

Schlopy, a movie cameraman who lives in Santa Monica, acknowledged uneasiness about leaving his bag outside. He said it contained nearly $2,000 worth of clubs and other equipment -- including a laser rangefinder that automatically determines his ball’s distance from the hole.

No signs advising golfers to watch their clubs were seen this week at either Brookside or the Santa Anita course -- even though officials at Santa Anita told Arcadia police last week that they intended to post warnings.

It was an Arcadia police investigation into club thefts at a Los Angeles police golf tournament that brought the current outbreak of thievery to light.

Los Angeles Police Lt. Brian Gilman, whose golf bag was stolen Friday at the Los Angeles County-run Arcadia course, said he was incensed when course employees were dismissive of his loss -- and then he learned that thefts there are common.

“I talked to the police officer who responded and said I thought the theft was a fluke. He said, no, there’d been a rash of them,” said Gilman, one of 51 LAPD officers who took part in a tournament Friday morning.

Along with his clubs, Gilman’s bag contained his wallet and cellphone. He estimated his loss at $2,300. Another LAPD officer lost a $250 putter while standing next to the tournament registration table. A third golfer unaffiliated with the police tourney had a $500 driver stolen, he said.

“I left my clubs unattended for a few minutes. But if I’d known there was a problem, I would have taken measures to protect them,” Gilman said. “You go to Griffith Park and at the L.A. city courses, there are signs starting from the parking lot to the clubhouse in day-glo orange saying you should be careful with your property.”

Arcadia Police Sgt. Paul Foley said an undercover officer had set up a sting operation Saturday at the course, but no thieves emerged.

“He put a bait golf club bag out there to be swiped. I don’t know whether I should say it’s good or it’s bad, but it didn’t get swiped,” Foley said Wednesday.

In the last month, his department alone has investigated seven reported thefts of clubs at the Santa Anita course, he said. “Apparently, there have been more thefts there than have been reported. When you’re leaving a lot of high-dollar stuff out unattended, it can be way too tempting to some people. It’s not hard to snag a bag.”

Foley said detectives have checked local golf stores but have not found any used clubs that appear to have been stolen.

Members of the Arcadia High School golf team who practice at the Santa Anita course say they are staying alert on the links. “Everyone keeps an eye out on each other,” said 16-year-old Vincent Huen, a 10th-grader.

Although at least one golf equipment company makes a bag that can lock all 14 clubs inside and then lock itself to a rack or golf cart with a retractable steel cable, theft of clubs is apparently not a major concern in other parts of the country.

“I don’t hear about it very much,” David Shefter, a spokesman for the New Jersey-based United States Golf Assn. said Wednesday. “I don’t see it happening here on the East Coast.”

But in the San Gabriel Valley, golfers are starting to say it’s better to keep your eye on the club than on the ball.