Drive Shack eyes portion of Newport Beach Golf Course for golf entertainment complex

A company wants to convert the driving range and front nine holes of a public golf course in Newport Beach into a golf entertainment complex with augmented-reality play.

Drive Shack would offer three floors of hitting bays, dining, lounges and an outdoor pavilion where Newport Beach Golf Course’s traditional driving range and holes 1, 2 and 9 now sit, according to an application for the necessary city permits.

From those 102 bays, players could whack weighted balls at targets on a 180-yard field, enhancing the experience with radar-based ball tracking, simulated course play and other augmented-reality features, including games that meld golf with darts, blackjack and a juniors-friendly quest to rid the course of digital monsters and free trapped baby dragons. The facility also would serve as a standard driving range.

“While golf courses throughout the country are losing money or being redeveloped with different land uses, the proposed project allows for ongoing access to golf with a more modern approach,” according to the application from Drive Shack representative Shawna Schaffner. “Reducing the size of the course from 18 holes to nine holes is an appropriate contraction given the current trends in golf, and in recognition of the substantial number of public and private golf courses within the surrounding area.”

Newport Beach Golf Course is an 18-hole, par-59 executive course developed in the 1970s at 3100 Irvine Ave. The operator leases from two landlords: The 38-bay driving range, putting green, pro shop, restaurant, parking lot and front nine holes are on privately owned land; the rest is on county property known officially as the “south clear zone” of John Wayne Airport.

Drive Shack opened its first location, in Orlando, Fla., in 2018. Venues in Raleigh, N.C., Richmond, Va., and West Palm Beach, Fla., followed last year. It markets itself to a range of golf skill sets and emphasizes its food, liquor and non-golf arcade games in a festive setting.

The parking lot for the proposed Newport location would be expanded from its current 280 spaces to 500, and the developer would grade the rolling topography enough to keep the rooftop low out of consideration for the nearby airport. Planned business hours are 9 a.m. to 2 a.m.

Jim Auster has golfed at Newport Beach Golf Course since the 1980s, before he moved to the nearby Santa Ana Heights neighborhood 20 years ago.

He sees golf entertainment as a fad that would have a permanent impact on Newport Beach Golf Course, where a bucket of range balls costs $6 to $12 and a full game costs no more than $28.

“It’s one of the few options we have here for affordable, easy-to-play courses,” Auster said.

Auster has a list of criticisms: The 500-space lot is excessive — but if it would actually bring enough traffic to justify its size, that’s also concerning. He also doesn’t like the idea of the nighttime bar and the grading of the land.

Newport Beach Golf Course would be halved to make way for Drive Shack, which would go atop the current driving range, seen in the background.

(Hillary Davis)

In addition to Newport Beach Golf Course, Orange County is the landlord to golf courses in Irvine, Santa Ana and three courses at Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley. Mile Square also is looking at substantial changes to its golf offerings.

The county has spent the past year planning how to take back and repurpose the 18-hole Players Course to cancel $3.6 million in unpaid rent owed by its contracted operator. The county said the long-term lease for the Players Course is no longer sustainable, given what it calls the declining state of the golf industry.

According to figures submitted to Orange County, Newport Beach Golf Course’s revenue has been uneven over the past several years. In fiscal 2018, the most recent report available, the course tallied $3.145 million in gross receipts. In fiscal 2009, it earned $3.476 million. Receipts were up and down in the years in between, from as low as $2.387 million in recession-shadowed fiscal 2011 to $3.498 million in fiscal 2017.

A course manager declined to comment.

The pitch for a Newport Drive Shack says golf is going through a “reset” period after a recession-fueled decline, bringing the industry back into balance after a course-building boom in the 1990s and 2000s.

“It is time to reinvest in the property in a way that benefits the community and responds to the current trends in golf,” the application states.

Craig Kessler, director of governmental affairs for the Southern California Golf Assn., said that generally, the most troubled courses are below regulation length — meaning executive courses like Newport Beach Golf Course, where most holes are par-3.

Those courses face the same climbing costs as their regulation-length counterparts but have less room to raise their prices because overall they’re less popular to begin with and draw from a more local pool of customers, Kessler said. So even if traffic is steady, it’s a precarious balance: Higher prices could push players away.

“As time has marched on, a little golf course, especially of that variety, is not the best and highest use of that property” for its owner, Kessler said.

He called the proposed redevelopment a “classic developmental compromise solution” that preserves some traditional golf, and he compared it to a situation in El Segundo. There, a wholly city-owned executive course has been converted to a nine-hole course, with Topgolf — a Drive Shack competitor — setting up shop on the other half.

Newport Beach Golf Course was developed in the 1970s. The 38-bay driving range, putting green, pro shop, restaurant, parking lot and front nine holes are on privately owned land. The rest is on county property known officially as the “south clear zone” of John Wayne Airport.

(File Photo)

The proposed Newport location would need several city approvals, including one to exceed the 20,000-square-foot building development limit, at 32,000 square feet. It is subject to review of the Planning Commission and City Council, plus the Airport Land Use Commission and Federal Aviation Administration, given the course’s proximity to the airport.

Auster said the back nine wouldn’t be appealing without the front nine. He thinks the three holes within the Drive Shack footprint can be spared if Drive Shack shrinks its parking lot, preserving the full 18-hole course.

“It’s nice here,” he said from a bench at the putting green. “We want to keep it. Bottom line. Simple.”

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