We give thanks for our historic Bay Area public courses and municipal jewels, for our loyal San Francisco Public Golf Alliance members, for all who contribute financial and moral support to our fight for public golf in San Francisco, and for those working with us to preserve Alister MacKenzie’s diamond in the rough at Sharp Park. And we ask for your generous tax-deductible year-end contribution. Your charitable support makes our work possible.
The San Francisco Bay Area, Northern California, and California golf communities mourn the recent death of Lynda “Lyn” Nelson, a beautiful soul and a true and passionate friend of golf. She died December 9, 2022 at her home in Half Moon Bay. Lyn was a rare bird – a woman golf executive in a traditionally male-dominated sport and business. She was driven by a conviction that golf must broaden its reach – to embrace women, children, and diversity. She also stood with the San Francisco Public Golf Alliance as a supporter of our efforts to save and restore Alister MacKenzie's Sharp Park.
In 1914, Britain's Country Life magazine published the winner of a "golfing architecture" contest to design an "ideal two-shot hole". The winner was Dr. Alister MacKenzie. His "ideal two-shot hole" crossed the Atlantic to be built at the Long Island Lido Club, proclaimed at the time to be "the finest course in the world". MacKenzie went on to become the most influential golf architect in the world. His "ideal two-shot" lives on at the restored Lido Course in Wisconsin, and at our SF muni - Sharp Park.
Predating the creation of the Lincoln Park golf course at the turn of the 20th century, the land was home to San Francisco City Cemetery. The historic cemetery was officially recognized on September 27, when the SF Board of Supervisors designated City Cemetery as a Landmark. The legislative intent is to honor the 19th Century immigrants who built the City and who are still buried there -- without impairing operation and maintenance of the historic Golf Course, the Art Museum, or the children’s playground.
An 18-month anti-golf campaign by California’s powerful development industry, its cheerleaders, lobbyists, and Assembly Member Cristina Garcia, author of AB-1910 (The Golf Endangerment Act) died last week in a May 19 Suspense File Hearing of the State Assembly’s fiscal watchdog Appropriations Committee.
Assembly Bill 1910 – the “Golf Endangerment Act” – pits the policy, money, and administrative powers of the State of California against public golf courses. This is the same as Assembly Bill 672, which died in committee last January. The bill picks on exactly those golfers – African Americans and other racial minorities, women, seniors, and schoolchildren – that National Golf Foundation says are golf’s fastest-growing groups and most dependent on affordable and accessible public courses.
A Tale of the 1948 Richmond Open, Bill Spiller and Ted Rhodes,
Western States Golf Association, Bay Area Golf Club, Sharp Park,
Joe Louis, Charlie Sifford, Stanley Mosk, Tiger Woods,
and the end of the PGA’s “Caucasians Only” Rule.
After speeding through the California State Assembly Housing and Local Government committees on January 12, Assembly Bill 672 – to provide State Taxpayer funds for cities to convert their public golf courses to housing developments – officially died on January 31, after the financial watchdog Assembly Appropriations Committee on January 20 put a “hold in committee” on the fiscally and legally uncertain bill.
California Assembly Bill 672 is a radical anti-golf measure that would put a $50 Million bounty of public funds on California’s municipal golf courses to entice cities to replace golf with high-density housing. An earlier version died in committee but it's risen from the grave. Help us put a stake through the heart of this unfair, polarizing legislation! Save the only available venues for millions of students, retirees, and socially and ethnically diverse men and women of all ages, incomes, and abilities who play the muni courses.
We give thanks for the historic public courses and municipal gems in our City and for our San Francisco Public Golf Alliance members who contribute financial and moral support to our many years-long fight to preserve public golf in San Francisco. In particular the on-going effort to restore San Francisco's muni "diamond in the rough" at Sharp Park.
In a time of extraordinary challenge for municipalities and muni golf, our co-founder Bo Links maps out a path forward to support municipal golf and explains why it's important to the future of the game.
Bo Links, co-founder of the San Francisco Public Golf Alliance, is winner of the 2021 Lido Prize for golf architecture design, awarded by the Alister MacKenzie Society and Golf Digest Magazine.
