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- Best time to golf alone los lagos golf course full#
- Best time to golf alone los lagos golf course pro#
The Ocean Course is scheduled to open this fall. The site, overlooking the Pacific Ocean between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach, should mean some spectacular views and an equally eye-opening price tag. Two, designed by Tom Fazio, will be part of the Irvine Co.'s new Newport Coast community. Three new public courses are being constructed in Orange County.
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Best time to golf alone los lagos golf course full#
Those new courses will be competing for members with a host of other South County clubs-including ones in Coto de Caza, Dove Canyon, Mission Viejo, San Juan Capistrano and the Gary Player-designed, 27-hole Pacific Golf Club layout in San Clemente-but supply is barely keeping up with demand.Īt Marbella Golf and Country Club in San Juan Capistrano, fewer than 40 of the 700 full memberships that now cost $85,000 remain. There are enough affluent professionals in that group to persuade the builders of San Clemente’s 3,500-acre Talega development to include two Arnold Palmer-designed private courses that are scheduled to open in the spring.
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Dues range from $220 to $375 per month, and that often doesn’t include mandatory food and beverage expenditures or golf carts.īut developers are continuing to bank on the growing demand for country-club courses as Orange County’s baby boomers reach their 40s and 50s. And private club membership doesn’t end with an initiation fee. Initiation fees at Orange County’s private courses range from a low of $12,000 at Alta Vista in Placentia to about $145,000 at Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach. But the fees are $75, $75 and $60, respectively.įor that kind of money, you ought to be able to join a private country club, right? Most of the readily available public tee times in the county are at some of the smaller-and often shabbier-courses or new courses that feature country-club-like layouts and charge accordingly.įor instance, an early morning call one week in advance will often result in a weekend starting time at Tustin Ranch in Tustin or The Links at Monarch Beach in Dana Point or Tijeras Creek in Rancho Santa Margarita. The odds of getting a morning starting time on Saturday or Sunday at most courses are still better than those for winning the lottery. Dad Miller and Anaheim Hills golf courses in Anaheim allows all the times to be scooped up each day in a matter of minutes. The new computerized phone reservation system at H.G. There’s still enough to clog phone lines and spawn waiting lines at courses that allow walk-ups to get starting times. I’m not saying there isn’t a problem and there isn’t a shortage, but I’m not so sure you have as many people out there dying to play as you might think.” They don’t enjoy it when they play because it takes 4 1/2 or five hours. “So, to start with, I think you have a lot of people in this area who simply no longer play golf. “The last time I played Ping-Pong was when I was 25, and I ride a bike maybe four times a year. I play golf, I ride a bike, I play Ping-Pong. “If you ask me in a survey if I play golf, then I would say yes. “A lot of people around here are like me, they’ve turned into closet golfers,” said Don Marshall, course operations manager for Anaheim. And golf is one of the fastest growing sports in the country, with the number of participants increasing almost 50% in the past five years.īut such numbers can be deceiving, because so many wanna-be golfers have either given up trying to get a starting time or thrown their clubs into the garage, swearing never to play again after a round that took more than five hours. The sign in front of his car in the golf course parking lot reads: “30-Minute Parking, 2 A.M to 5 A.M.” Obviously, it’s not enforced.Ĭlearly, public golf in Orange County is a case of tee and sympathy.Ī recent survey compiled by the National Golf Foundation listed Orange County as 309th among 320 metropolitan areas in the number of golf holes per capita.
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This is a good course, considering the cost ($12 on weekdays) and the shape it’s in.”īernie Dorst, also of San Clemente, is second in line. “I’m generally the guy in our foursome who gets the times because I live right down the street, and I like to get up early. “I’m retired now, so this is no problem for me,” Huenger said. They are just some members of this south Orange County division of the golfing dawn patrol.
Best time to golf alone los lagos golf course pro#
And he isn’t alone.īy the time starter Sal Russo opens the San Clemente Golf Course pro shop at 5:30 a.m., 21 other cars are parked alongside Huenger’s. Huenger, a retired real estate developer, answered his alarm clock’s reveille to play a waiting game of another sort. No, Huenger isn’t a Marine waiting for war games to begin, and he’s on post this morning without motivation provided by a drill instructor. The smoke from his cigarette swirls and disappears into the predawn mist. It’s 4:45 on a Wednesday morning, and Don Huenger sits slouched behind the wheel of his vehicle, parked on the outskirts of Camp Pendleton.
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