The PA Golf Course is nothing particularly interesting to play.
It has some long holes, but that's about it.

I stopped playing there because I feel like I'm getting ripped off every time I revisit the course.

Their fees continue to climb, the course Sheriff rushes you along even when he can see that you're not dawdling about (which is just the most annoying thing, especially after having paid to enjoy this mediocre course), and then a club house Bloody Mary costs $10!

What do they expect?
Do they think this is the way to attract more players??
And how come other City's give their residents a reduced rate but we don't here???

It just feels like overpriced and unappreciated patronage, and it's OUR course!

That's the situation. It's up to them to make the first move to make it better.

Lower your rates considerably, stop rushing us through the course, and make it an enjoyable outing.

They should return the course of the creek as it originally flowed THROUGH the site now occupied by the golf course. A nicer water feature might make the course more interesting too. In doing so, we might also get our harbor back.

I concur with Duffer.

I stopped playing Palo Alto Muni because most holes are flat, straight, and almost featureless. The course gives no discount to non-senior residents. The only benefit is priority tee times on weekends, which must be booked in person on Monday mornings! I play mostly at Shoreline and Santa Clara because the non-discounted green fees are comparable and those courses offer more variety. Mountain View and Santa Clara offer their residents discounts at all times. Why can't Palo Alto?

Why in the world do we have a municipal golf course?

I've lived in PA for 26 years and I've never met anyone who uses this facility. Has anyone ever seen statistics about what percentage of city residents play there?

I've never understood why the City should aggressively sponsor this one particular pastime over all others.

So, Duffer, why should I pay to subsidize your green fees?

Mondo

I am not a golfer, but I understand from my golfer friends that PA is a so-called dog run, as courses go. I also kwow that there was some discussion, by Pat Burt and others, about trying to maximize interest and value and flood control at the course. This idea involved a links course design, with flood overflow channels, freeing up space for some playing fields, attracting a top level hotel (private money only), leveraging the natural interest from airport customers. I think this is a very attractive concept.

I am not a golfer but agree that it is not fair to Palo Alto residents to charge higher fees for what is widely seen as an inferior course.
Using part of it for flood control mitigation seems like an excellent idea to me.
Another possibility is to restore part of it as burrowing owl habitat
that formerly were quite common near the golf course and are now almost extinct in the area.

"Why in the world do we have a municipal golf course?" We have a golf course for the same reasons we have a lot of things in Palo Alto that we don't need, like the proposed Beasley granite blocks for Mitchell Park.

We simply do not have a City Council with the backbone to say, hey this is a waste of money lets close it and save the many thousands of dollars annually it costs to maintain it - won't happen because the Council is chicken!!!

I am not a golfer, but I am pleased that we have a golf course in Palo Alto. I didn't realise that it was such a poor course until I read this thread. We need all our facilities that improve our way of life in Palo Alto much more than we need public art. Spend our money improving our facilities, our playing fields, our access to the Bay, our parks and our golf course. We need these things much more than expensive public art that costs an arm and a leg. The best public art in Mitchell Park is the huge fallen tree that the kids love to play on.

Spend money more efficiently on our facilities - make them useful. Our community is growing because of all the housing, the recreational activities and space need to grow accordingly.

I don't use everything (I don't play golf) in Palo Alto, but I'm glad to see that we have a facilities that others enjoy.

As a business, recreational golf across the U.S. has been on a slow decline for most of this decade. (Source: Web Link ). This is not just a local problem.

Do our 5 secondary schools have golf clubs, or teams, and do they play each other at this course. Get the kids involved and I am sure that it will get more popular if that is what is required.

How about restoring the land where the golf course resides and instead create a new one on the old dump? Put some hills in it with some ponds and wetlands. Some topography with the afternoon wind should make a much more challenging course!

I took a younger friend there to introduce him to the game.
Duffer is right - It cost me $40 plus tip for two double Bloody Mary's!
Do ya think they laughed at me after I paid?...

Lower your outrageous prices now or risk losing those patrons that haven't figured out that there are far superior courses nearby.

And yeah - fire your Sheriff!

With the drastic shortage of playing fields for all field sports, why don't we close the golf course - which even with its high prices just breaks even for the city - and restore part to wetlands and part to playing fields? It would be too bad for the golfers, but the person per acre usage would probably rise dramatically, so all for the better for Palo Alto as a whole

Municipal Golf Courses can make money but it needs to be a destination. Here are the fees for San Francisco's Municipal Golf Course - Harding Park (where the 2009 President's Cup will be played). Harding Park is solidly in the fog belt for most of the summer.

No one would pay these greens fees for a course like the PA course.

HARDING PARK Mon. - Thurs. Fri. - Sun.**
Standard* $135.00 $155.00
Standard Twilight* $105.00 $125.00
N.Cal Counties* $89.00 $99.00
SF Resident $46.00 $59.00
SF Senior Resident $31.00 $59.00
SF Resident Juniors $15.00 $20.00

I disagree with many of the opinions above.

Here are the comments I posted today to the PA Weekly article on the course:

The people who have been responsible for the rehabilitation and management of PA Muni over the last 10 years deserve a great deal of credit. The course is excellent value; that is the combination of the playing experience and the cost yielding a good result.

I play a lot of other courses, some as far away as Monterey. Yes, you can find better courses, but usually at minimum about twice the green fee, and often three times the fee of PA. There is also the big factor that PA Muni is close by, saving both travel time and gas. So in the last two years my usual golf partners and I have switched to about 75% play at PA Muni. There is nothing about the course that makes it feel like a poor second choice. And it compares well with other munis in the area.

The people I get paired with at PA Muni are almost always from contiguous towns-Mt View, Los Altos, Stanford, Sunnyvale. I do not hear anyone complaining about the play of the course unless it is a full day like a Friday and play is slow (like all public courses.) I think the reason they are there is the same as mine.

I hope that reduced travel times, gas (and all that entails with our green council) and value will factor in to our future decisions about the course.

Golf is not a game for the elite, and has not been for a long time. That was true in the 50's and 60's, but not anymore.

PS-And for anyone not yet informed, ask about how many of the local schools golf teams are coached by PA Muni staff, or practice there because it is close and economical.

I think the course usage peaked 5 years ago at 106,000 rounds. A few years ago I was told the course is used for 70,000 rounds. Of these, 17% are Palo Alto golfers.

If the average Palo Alto golfer is using the facility once per week, there are only 230 or so Palo Altans playing there. OK, let's acknowledge the statistic error there and just double the number to 460 unique Palo Alto golfers.

Is this the highest and best use of the land?

Additional comment on the Clubhouse and prices.

The bar/restaurant facility at PA Muni is contracted by a private party. After a round, my golf partners and I always go there. The bar there is well attended when compared to most of the munis, and virtually all of the public non-muni courses. Eagle Ridge, San Juan Oaks, Aptos Seascape and others have virtually empty bars always.

Since I do not drink double Bloody Marys I cannot comment on the prices, but I know that pitchers of premium beer like Fat Tire and Sierra Nevada are right in line with other facilities. The food is fine, not great, but better than adequate.

At lunch lots of the customers are from the nearby offices, and the same for a number of the people having drinks there evenings.

If I have a wish, it would be for a nicer patio area, since the view overlooking the 18th green and approach is very nice, and makes for great potential as a bar seating area.

I am a supporter of PA Muni(by playing there 3-4 times a month) because it all works. It is not perfect, but once again-the value is there.

I have played Paly Muni several times a month for most of the twenty years I have lived in Palo Alto. There is no question from a golfers perspective the course serves the need for a low priced close to home round of golf.

The people working there are very professional and seem to be making the most of a public facility that is thread bare and a little bit tired.

Indeed there are better public courses within the Peninsula but PALY certainly has it's endearing qualities, such as it's length, ease (you won't loose a lot of golf balls), and yes cost.

The course certainly was not designed very well and seems to have somewhere b/t 10 and 25 acres of unused land. IMHO I think the opportunity, with the flood control project coming down the line, exist to rethink the way golf is played at PALY. Today's golf courses can be designed to minimize environmental impact and at the same time increase the benefit to some wildlife, flora, etc. . Some smaller "executive" type golf courses still serve the golfing community but free up land for playing fields or open space. I certainly have spent an hour and half just getting out in the sun to play the front nine at PALY. A new facility with great practice facilities, better playing conditions and better designed holes could make the facility a money maker for PALY. I would be curious to see what kind of money Poplar Creek a San Mateo City course makes since it's upgrade?

Does 130 acres of open space used by 17% of our citizens make a golf course viable? That is a tough question. Certainly a time will come when either the golf course is made a destination and an economic engine, or that it will eventually wither into decay and be reborn as something else.
I love golf and have enjoyed the facilities there as a Palo Alto citizen and would hate to see it go and would love to see it reach its full potential.
The important thing for us Golfers and non golfers alike is to make sure what we do is done as thoughtfully as possible.

If I read the above post right, there are 130 acres of open space used by about 500 locals, or <1% of our citizens. And there is only one use (no parties, walking, etc.). Nice if we've got land to spare, as we once did. With the dearth of playing fields throughout town, it would seem sensible to start looking at alternatives here.

Then of course there is the PA airport facility - another interesting use of space by I imagine an even smaller local population.

I am always hearing about the dearth of playing fields for soccer in Palo Alto. Then why when I walk through Mitchell Park on Saturday afternoons the soccer fields at JLS are empty, they are not being used.

I've walked passed Cubberley also on a Sunday afternoon and their soccer fields aren't being used either. This whole thing about lack of playing fields is a lie.

Soccer season for many is now over. As the last couple of weeks of the season contains many competitions, some in other cities, the need for fields diminishes. What may appear to be no need now in November, is not the same as the busy season of September/October. And, it isn't just Saturdays for games, but midweek, after school, for practices. Most teams practice twice a week, but because of the dark, only one team can practice on one soccerfield at a time because the window is so short. If we had some lighs at Mitchell Park and Greer Park, two pracice sessions per soccer field could be accommodated.

Palo Alto Muni is the perfect golf course. It is near a freeway, generally windy, near a landfill. near an airport and flat and uninteresting but it is fairly long and the green fees are reasonable for what it has to offer. My only objection to the course was the fact that residents, unlike Mountain View residents who play Shoreline, do not not get a discount on green fees.
The course would be greatly improved if Fish and Game would allow one week of goose shooting every year. The birds could be donated to soup kitchens.

In other posts there appears to be some confusion about the funding of the Palo Alto Golf Course. It is not a recreational facility supported by tax payer funds. It has been putting money into the Palo Alto general fund for almost its entire 50 plus years. Even with the recent drop off in rounds the ERA report shows the course contributing $338,000 dollars to the city in what is called cost plan contribution. There was also a $50,000 profit and the course continued to pay off the bond debt from the recent upgrade. Flood control is clearly more important than golf but it is clear that proper planning will allow the land to serve both sets of needs. People interested in getting more information about the course would do well to actually read the report prepared by ERA instead of taking summary information from newspaper articles.

I'm very much in agreement with “Craig's” statements above. For many years the course profits provided an excess of $400,000 a year towards the city's overhead. Even with the slump in golf play it still pays all of the bills and has revenue left to take care of its own capital improvement needs. The decline in play, from a high of just over 100,000 golfers to the present 76,000, is actually less of a slump than most city/county and private courses have seen. (It's important to note that play over 90,000 is disaterous for the ongoing mainteance of any course) Add to that the fact that the long term outlook for golf play is up due to retiring boomer population.

As far as the playing conditions, the course stands up well to most of the local muni courses, and plays quite difficult in the afternoons when the wind is blowing. The golf maintenance staff, (note that there are the fewest number of workers employed by any local golf course), does a great job given their limited numbers, and the pro staff are always courteous and professional.

One final note is that although the play from Palo Alto resident golfers is relatively low, the bulk of the 76,000 golfers are coming from out of town and spending their money in your town. It’s like saying let’s lose Stanford Shopping Center because most of the customers are not Palo Altans. (A bit of a stretch, but you get the idea.)