Sharp Park Update, Bill Fields' Images

With the Presidents Cup past I finally got to savor Bill Fields' gallery of black and white images from a recent visit to the embattled Alister MacKenzie public course outside San Francisco. It's well worth a look and a reminder of just the kind of place golf needs more of, and yet, the effort to save the place has not been joined by any of the game's national organizations.

I also forgot that the Save Sharp Park folks got their day in court with the Wild Equity zealots on November 18. Fields filed this update on what went on.

"Sharp Park is the latest Flanders field between the stereotypes of rich, white, middle-aged golfers and the ponytailed, sandals-and-socks set."

A nice twist in the Sharp Park saga: two San Mateo County supervisors penned an op-ed for the SF Examiner advocating saving Alister MacKenzie's embattled public course and say the county would be happy to take on the burden of operating a potentially fantastic, profitable and environmentally important public course. Go figure!

Carole Groom and Adrienne J. Tissier write:

However, Sharp Park does not have to become the philosophical moonscape of trench warfare, where slogans and sound bites obfuscate reasoning. Sharp Park can be a place where golfers from all socioeconomic strata successfully co-exist with sensitive coastal species.

Actually, San Mateo County and Pacifica already have the framework of a plan to do exactly that. The golf course can be reconfigured to support the endangered snakes and threatened frogs, while recapturing some of MacKenzie’s original layouts. Additionally, San Mateo County has already identified private sources willing to underwrite most — if not all — of this proposed peaceful co-existence.

Sharp Park Gets Help From The PGA Tour!

Granted, it was done--as Ron Kroichick reports--by getting the Harding Park superintendent reassigned to Sharp Park and paying for their own guy to run Harding in order to get it ready for this year's highly anticipated Schwab Cup. But at this point, Sharp Park will take any help it can get.

Sharp Park Survives First Major Hurdle

Thanks to reader Dean for Rachel Gordon's SF Insider blog entry on the SF Park and Recreation report release (Friday-at-6:30 pm!!) recommending the salvation of Sharp Park as an 18-hole course, with some pricey design changes to accommodate the endangered species.

The entire report can be read here.

Update on 2009-11-09 03:16 by Geoff

Wayne Freeman of the San Francisco ABC affiliate filed this report:

"Sharp Park as golf course is best for everyone"

C.W. Nevius provides another high-profile endorsement for saving MacKenzie's Sharp Park as a golf course as a significant Park and Recreation recommendation for going forward is about to be released.

"MacKenzie’s Sharp Park Under Siege"

Richard Harris and Bo Links pen a GolfClubAtlas.com In My Opinion piece analyzing the history and evolution of Alister MacKenzie's endangered Sharp Park. And for more of the past coverage here on the Sharp saga, check out the archives.



 

"Is our world-class city so inept we can't figure out how to protect endangered species at a golf course without having to either give away the land or eliminate golf there?"

Nancy Wuerfel, "a fiscal analyst by profession," is on San Francisco's Park, Recreation and Open Space Advisory Committee. And yes, its acronym is PROSAC. Anyway, nice to see another common sense op-ed piece on the Sharp Park situation as major decisions are about to be made.

This was the most refreshing point, something I touched in my Golf World story and something that the extremists have been fudging the truth about for some time:

Claims that city golf courses lose money are just not true. I analyzed the financial information for the first six years of the city's Golf Fund. The Recreation and Park Department's accounting practices have created the appearance that Sharp Park golf course is losing money when it is not. These findings were submitted to the Recreation and Park Commission and the Recreation and Park Department.