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The Golden Gate Park Golf Course in San Francisco, California, always had the bones of a special golf experience. This municipal 9-hole par-3 course is located in one of America’s great urban parks, just a couple of blocks from the Pacific Ocean, on a breezy and sandy site that feels more like Scotland than California. It was always lively and packed with golfers – but the course also felt like it was less than the sum of its parts.

It is so close to the ocean, but you couldn’t see the water thanks to overgrown shrubbery and trees. The course sits on native sand dunes, but it played soft and squishy rather than firm and fast. It was affordable, it was nice being by the beach, but you couldn’t help feeling that the course could be so much more.

First Tee - San Francisco, which operates the facility, recognized the challenges facing the course, but they also knew that it held tremendous value for their youth programs and the golf community in San Francisco. When they decided to renew their lease with the city in 2023, they committed to investing in a major renovation of the property. Golf course architect Jay Blasi was asked to help bring out the course’s full potential.

Blasi explained the key elements of his plan: “The most important things we wanted to accomplish were widening the playing corridors, creating more variety and interest with new greens and multiple teeing options on each hole, and getting the ball moving on the ground to present more shot options and improve playability for all skill levels.”

“We changed the sequence of the holes to improve the flow of a round, and made the greens larger with more varied contours. Some greens have probably doubled or tripled in size,” said Blasi. “We transitioned from mowing everything but the greens at rough height to fairway height, so the ball can bounce and roll on the ground now. We also caught up on some overdue tree and shrub management, which opened up the playing areas and got more light and air to the turf.”

Taking advantage of the underlying sandy soil was a key part of realizing the site’s full potential. “They had actually covered the dunes with heavy soil and organic matter when they built the course,” explained Josh Lewis, the project and construction manager from the Gradoville and Hertzing Management Group. “That caused a lot of the drainage and playability issues. We removed that heavy material so we could grow firm, healthy turf on the free-draining sandy soil below.”

Soil testing revealed that the native sand would be an outstanding growing medium for the fescues and bentgrasses Blasi and Lewis wanted to use on the site. “Just because you have sandy soil doesn’t mean that it’s always good for building greens or growing grass,” said Lewis, “but this site just happened to have very consistent, high-quality sand throughout – so we stumbled on a bit of a unicorn.”

Because the sand was so suitable, they were able to rebuild the greens without using imported greens mix or installing any drainage pipe. The greens are a blend of two improved bentgrass varieties and the fairways and tees are a four-way blend of fine fescues.

“Using fine fescue is going to help us achieve the firm and fast conditions that this site should have,” explained Lewis. “Fine fescue also has good drought and disease tolerance in this environment, which will help with our overall sustainability goals.”

Sustainability from an environmental and financial standpoint was a guiding force behind the project. The new irrigation system makes it possible to water much more efficiently and the overall area of irrigated turf was reduced by introducing natural sand scrapes and meadow areas. These are valuable improvements for a course in drought-prone California.

Making sure that routine maintenance will be as simple and efficient as possible for the San Francisco Parks and Recreation staff was also a priority. There are only two mowing heights, one for fairways and tees and one for the greens – there won’t be any mown rough on the golf course. This reduces the amount of maintenance equipment required and simplifies the mowing process. Also, there is only one formal bunker in the new design to minimize costly bunker maintenance.

“Jay designed everything with future maintenance in mind,” explained Lewis. “The course is going to have a modest budget, so we had to make things as easy as possible. We worked closely with the Parks and Rec department throughout the process to make sure they felt comfortable maintaining what we built.”

That spirit of collaboration was a core element of project. “It’s been a true partnership,” said Dan Burke, CEO of First Tee - San Francisco. “The city values their golf properties more than ever and they recognized right away what a win this project would be for the community. They’ve been great to work with and they’re committed to investing the resources necessary to keep the course in great shape, all year round, for many years to come.”

Today, you can see the ocean from the Golden Gate Park Golf Course for the first time in decades, you can watch shots bounce and roll over the rumpled ground, and you feel like the course is finally reaching its potential. This project reconnected the course with its incredible site, and with the ancient roots of public golf played over coastal dunes. It will be a great place to learn the game or play for a lifetime, a benefit to locals and visitors alike, and hopefully an inspiration for others to bring out the untapped potential of their municipal golf courses.