Tee Times at Torrey Pines a Value to Visitors

The last time Jeff Etzkin, the vice president of special events for a Washington, D.C.-based trade group of independent insurance agents, was able to reserve tee times at the Torrey Pines Golf Course was in 1998.

The small group of executives had to alter their meeting plans to fit in play according to the San Diego public course’s busy schedule, but they were more than happy to.

Business has brought members of Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America back to San Diego since then, yet the golf enthusiasts among them had no luck getting on at Torrey Pines. Nevertheless, they’re making another stab at it.

A group of 10 association executives and staff members are planning an advance tour here in June as a precursor to a fall of 2007 convention for 1,000, and they want to get in a round of golf on the south course at Torrey Pines.

Bill Yahres, a sales executive with the Event Team, a San Diego-based destination management firm, which is handling arrangements for the group’s activities is doing his best to make it happen.

Destination management firms make their money acting as the local arm arranging ancillary events and entertainment for corporations and associations planning meetings and conventions in San Diego.

“I’d like to lock up this deal,” Yahres said. “But I can’t because I can’t guarantee tee times.”

The distribution of tee times, raising them and whether they should be brokered, as well as improvements at San Diego’s three municipal golf courses , Torrey Pines, Balboa Park and Mission Bay , that include a new $13 million clubhouse at Torrey Pines in preparation for the 2008 U.S. Open tournament have been under review for several weeks. And while a proposed five-year plan by the city’s Golf Department to address those matters was scheduled for approval by the San Diego City Council later this month, Mayor Jerry Sanders last week derailed the process to study a bond indebtedness on the Torrey Pines north course that hadn’t been taken into consideration. The debt throws a wrench into the possibility of using green’s fees to finance a new clubhouse.

Meanwhile, Yahres and other destination managers don’t like the component of the plan that calls for eliminating tee-time brokers. To aid him in his task of booking rounds at Torrey Pines, Yahres said he has to use a tee-time broker , a third-party vendor that coordinates golf rounds for a fee , because he doesn’t have the time to deal with the city’s reservation system himself.

“I’d have to block out a chunk of time for speed dialing,” Yahres said. “It’s like a radio request line; it’s so busy. I don’t have that kind of time to sit on the phone.”

He may have no choice, however, if city leaders make it illegal for people to resell tee times at the municipal courses for a profit.

Booking tee times at the other municipal courses is a nonissue, because there’s little demand for them from visitors, Yahres said. In contrast, the county’s private courses , which charge substantially more than the municipal ones , welcome the business they get from meeting planners and tee-time brokers.

Torrey Pines, a challenging course that annually hosts the Buick Invitational, boasts “breathtaking” views of the Pacific Ocean.

“I get higher demand for Torrey Pines than any other golf course in San Diego,” Yahres added.

As the director of golf for San Diego-based PRA Destination Management, Vince Tully arranges golf outings for the firm’s four Southern California offices, including San Diego, and he feels Yahres’ pain.

“I’d say that out of all the requests we get for Torrey, I’m able to accommodate only about 25 percent to 30 percent,” he said.

Convention planners may book engagements up to three years ahead of time, but typically they don’t schedule ancillary activities more than 60 days ahead, which is too small a window for Torrey Pines.

“By then it’s too late,” Tully said. “Everything is booked.”

Tully is under contract with PRA. He’s also the owner and president of Carlsbad-based San Diego Golf Events, which arranges tournaments for several of the county’s golf courses. Technically, he says, he’s not a broker. However, since he makes a profit for his endeavors, he could be barred from arranging golf games at the city’s municipal courses, according to the most recent draft of the plan.

“If you take out people like me and the tee-time brokers that are paying top dollar, that’s a lot of revenue the city can’t afford to take away from Torrey Pines,” Tully said.

The Plan Is A Bogey

One of the most contentious points of the plan called for annual increases in residents’ weekday fees, from $40 for 18 holes of play to $63 by 2011 and from $45 to $79 for 18 holes on the weekends.

Paul Spiegelman, an adjunct law professor at the San Diego-based Thomas Jefferson School of Law, who heads the grass roots San Diego Municipal Golfers’ Alliance, says he has collected 900 signatures on a petition of protest.

“A new clubhouse doesn’t do anything for us,” he said. “Renovate what we have. Make it a little prettier. Add some meeting space.”

Spiegelman, however, has no problem with raising tourists’ fees.

“I think that’s the way to go,” he said. “I think the tourists’ fees would bear the market rate, because if they don’t go to the market rate, then someone will figure a way to charge tourists a market rate and the city won’t benefit.”

The newest plan proposes that tourists, who are charged $115 for 18 holes on weekdays, pay $189 by 2011. On the weekends, the rate would go from the current price of $135 to $236.

Tully has no qualms about hiking visitors’ rates either.

“La Costa and the Grand Del Mar and Maderas in Poway, they all charge more,” he said. “Certainly Torrey can demand more from visitors, but I’m sure the market is there for local guys to pay that fee.”

According to a chart of comparable rates in the last revision, the Grand Del Mar charges players $145 to play 18 holes on weekdays and $175 on weekends. The La Costa Resort