At Aviara, where a round of golf costs $120, they had to turn down about 600 delegates and guests attending the Republican National Convention.
There just weren’t enough tee times to go around.
And at La Costa Resort and Spa–where a spin around the links goes for $130–golf pro Scott Welsh was so busy he could barely leave the pro shop.
“I felt like a personal secretary,” said Welsh.
He was answering the phone and dispatching the club gofer to deliver urgent messages to the senators, members of Congress and titans of various businesses who had managed to break away from convention chores to spend four hours on the classy course.
It wasn’t exactly golf gridlock. But it came close.
There are 89 courses in the city and surrounding suburbs, including some of the most famous courses in the nation, and they were busy from dawn until dusk this week as Republicans swarmed to greens and fairways for a little relaxation.
They don’t call them Country Club Republicans for nothing.
A call to one of the area’s tee-time brokerage businesses could fetch a midweek afternoon starting time. But if you wanted to get there early at one of the more desirable courses, forget it.
The Chicago Board of Trade booked La Costa for 100 of the chosen on Tuesday. That group received more urgent phone messages in a day than Welsh usually delivers in a month.
But the most urgent message of all came into the fabled Torrey Pines Municipal Golf Course, a glorious oceanfront course on the PGA tour.
It was there on Wednesday that Illinois delegate Roger Claar, the mayor of suburban Bolingbrook, got a call on his cellular phone telling him that state police had a search warrant to enter his Bolingbrook house to look for records related to a controversial tollway land deal in Will County.
“I’ve never seen a guy leave the golf course looking so unhappy,” said a golfer who saw Claar on his way back to his hotel.
But there were nothing but relaxed smiles and cheery hellos Thursday from the Utah delegates who played 18 holes and stayed for lunch at the grill at Torrey Pines. It was their second time there this week.
“I usually play golf three times a year,” said Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch after his round. “I’ve played three times this week.”
Golf, Hatch said, is his only real relaxation this week. On Wednesday, he gave 27 interviews, visited with the nine of his 15 grandchildren who live in California and popped into a handful of meetings, receptions and, of course, the official nomination of Bob Dole for president at the convention center.
Thursday was better, even though Hatch had been shooting in the high 80s and was unhappy with the day’s score, a 90.
Hatch said recreation at events like the Republican convention is important. “It just can’t all be politics. It’s got to be love and friendship and mutual growth,” he said, sounding like a minister in the Church of Golf.
“It’s just one way of getting close and forgetting the doggone world out there.”
There seems to be a lot of forgetting. At Torrey Pines this week, Golf Operations Manager John Walter said Republicans booked five tournaments over four days for a total of 580 rounds of golf.
That doesn’t count the many foursomes that planned ahead and got tee-times at the bargain rate of $50 per round–the customary cost for all non-residents, mighty or mundane.
“To tell you the truth, business is booming in San Diego for golf,” said Leslie Chocheles, who books tournaments for nine area courses as sales director for American Golf Corp.
In fact, golf is such a hot commodity here that the city government has its own golf division. At Torrey Pines, the public course, tee times are so coveted that golfers sleep in their cars in the parking lot to get the first-come, first-served spots at first light on weekends.
Walter, the Torrey Pines golf manager, said that the many GOP conventioneers he saw this week were no more enthusiastic about the game than the other citizens–Democrat and Republican–he sees daily on his course.
Said Walter, “Anybody who plays golf is passionate about it.”
