Golfers are about to pay more to play San Diego’s municipal courses.
At the start of the year, the city is increasing green fees by 3% for locals and 5% for non-residents. It’s the third straight year San Diego is raising the costs to play its courses.
The increase comes as the city has raised parking rates, trash fees, recreation center usage charges and other costs to balance a structural budget shortfall.
The cost for an adult resident for a weekday round at Balboa Park’s 18-holes will increase from $38 to $39. A round at Torrey Pines North will rise from $50 to $51, and Torrey Pines South will rise from $71 to $73.
For the city’s two smaller courses – Mission Bay and Balboa’s 9-hole course– green fees will go up by a dollar.
The city’s Golf Division announced the fee hike this month at a meeting of the Municipal Golf Committee. The city’s Parks and Recreation Director Andy Field has the sole authority to raise fees, so the committee did not need to approve the hike.
The Golf Division proposed charging $10 to make a reservation. That proposal required approval by the committee, which voted it down, citing the need to keep costs low on city-owned courses.
Instead, the city will charge $10 to make a reservation, but it will then be deducted from the cost of a round. Creating the $10 reservation deposit is intended to address the problem of brokers snatching up the most desirable tee times then reselling them for profit, a practice which has plagued golfers in both San Diego and Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Municipal Golf system came up with the idea of charging a $10 deposit applied to the cost of the round. It was immediately successful and the brokers disappeared.
San Diego’s Golf Division had consistently denied its system was being penetrated by bots or digital devices while rejecting pleas from golfers and the municipal golf committee’s outgoing president to address the problem.
Now, months later, the division has embraced the Los Angeles fee after a failed attempt to make San Diego golfers pay $10 to make a reservation.
