San Diego - An Experiment in Community
I was asked to sit at the foot of my parent’s bed. My father had something important to show me. I wasn’t told what it was exactly, all I knew was that my dad had an unconcealable grin, one with a sense of purpose and intention, as I walked into their master bedroom. Recognizing that I wasn’t going to get punished for something that I had “no idea about”, I jumped up onto the edge of the sheets with anticipation. What followed changed my life. A 25 inch screen television with actual buttons on the front, shockingly, blared a noise that was incomprehensible, something that I had never heard before and will probably never hear again.
“I’ve been waiting to show you this”, my father interjected. The patience and maturity to deconstruct such a statement just simply wasn’t in my lexicon, but the visuals explained themselves. I think everyone remembers when they first saw Top Gun.
The Landing Signal Officers were the stars of the show for the first 5 minutes, but I had no clue who those people were in the bright colored vests running around on the flight deck. I was more focused on the planes: F-14 Tomcats. They were such beasts, commanding everyone’s attention in the theater when it was first shown in 1986. The noises were so vibrant and the visuals were so shocking that I simply couldn’t comprehend it all. It was bright, high pitched, and swirly; like 20 tea kettles in your apartment’s kitchenette were all about to boil over. Stimulus overload is what makes that scene so memorable, the transition between the dramatic opening credits that then dives head first into Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone”. It was such a surprising change of pace that launched, literally and figuratively, the film immediately into the cinematic limelight. Julie Macholz, call sign “Casper”, a close friend and former Naval Aviator, had her final carrier test the morning after the opening night of Top Gun. She describes how everyone laughed when, after walking out of the theaters that night, said that she was going to go land on an actual carrier in an actual jet for the actual Navy that next morning. I don’t think even I would’ve believed her until I had seen some wings on her bleach white uniform.
Sure, I had been interested in military aviation before that point, but nothing in the same ballpark as then on after. There were twice as many books and twice as much time reading those books (more like just looking at cool pictures, but who knows the difference at 8 years old). My dad came to my brother and I about heading down to San Diego for the Miramar Air Show, an annual presentation of the coolest military power on the planet. I had only been to San Diego a couple times before but never thought it was anything special. But when we went down for that air show, the proverbial lightbulb turned on over my head, and I saw San Diego through another filter. It was now unbeatable. The beach, the sunshine, and especially the activity in the air is a concoction of a rare sort. I identified this city as excitement and action. There are not many places where it’s a common sight to spot a pair of F-18s soaring over I-5, and a pack of Blackhawk helicopters flying so close to the beach you thought they were going to land on it. I would soon find another reason that San Diego is one of the coolest places on earth: the golf.
I was done with this class already and I had only just sat down. The first lecture of the Intro to New Testament class had started with a thorough reading from the Gospel of Thomas. Never heard of it? That’s because it’s not in any New Testament I had ever read. The imagination drifted, the daydreams started up, and I was transported to a happier place just up the coast.
In my mind, I had already driven past the ever-bustling Genesee Avenue, where weekend warriors and golf tourist bucket-listers alike turned off Interstate 5 for Torrey Pines. My ideal daydream never really goes straight to a five and a half hour round on one of the most penal courses in America, so my imagination kept moving north. Just east of the San Elijo Lagoon is The Bridges at Rancho Santa Fe. One of the more private and secluded courses in all of Southern California, “RSF” as locals call it, is for the big shots on the block. I could imagine one day getting an invite from Phil Mickelson or Brian Baumgartner (Kevin from the Office), both staples of its membership pedigree. It was more of a celebrity-fueled, exclusionary getaway than a realistic tee time for a broke college student, so I kept scrolling through my rolodex of possible havens. And then it came to me. My mind stopped on one spot and couldn’t move on from it. My photographic memory just had to stop right before Camp Pendleton in the city of Oceanside. I had only been there once before to visit the house where Tom Cruise was late for a dinner with Kelly McGilis; a hilariously inaccurate scene in Top Gun where a realistic drive from the volleyball courts at the Miramar Air Station to the undisguised blue house is anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. Nice going, Tom; in the movie it looks like you make it in about 5. In Oceanside, there is really only one place to play, and it fully owes its existence to social media and a band of committed, golfaholic activists: Goat Hill Park.
Realizing that I was still in class, I politely excused myself without anyone hearing a single slide of the chair or rustling of paper. “Where are you going?”, the professor asked with a hint of agitation in his voice, probably because I had just previously asked “all the wrong questions'' and “disrupted his flow” when contradicting his own theories and stances with that of the actual Bible. Sue me.
“Just going to the restroom,” I said. But that was a total lie, and probably even he recognized that, especially when I walked out of the classroom and headed towards the parking lot, the opposite direction of the restroom. I had to get out of there for my own sanity: my daydreams had gotten the best of me. It probably didn’t help that I had booked a tee time at Goat Hill Park while still in class. My clubs were always in my car, so all I had to do was fill up my truck, quickly get a boost of caffeine in order to wake up from that nap session of a lecture, and book it up to Oceanside.
I had only heard about this place: a public golfer's refuge for those wanting to escape tucked-in shirts and gate codes, Goat Hill Park had the reputation of a satisfyingly restful experience. I was told that the atmosphere itself was worth taking the time in the car to go, let alone the golf. I had two options: to go and find out, or stay and see whether or not that class got any more interesting.
San Diego was always a happy spot for me. It didn't matter where I was in the world, I would’ve probably rather been in San Diego. It’s a city, with all the benefits a city has to offer, without feeling like a city. Perfect for someone who hates crowds but likes good food and a semi-decent Vesper Martini once and a while, stirred of course. Sorry James, only sociopaths shake their gin, or so I was told in San Diego. So being able to go to school in the very place your family vacations seemed like it was too good to pass up. I showed up to the first day of freshman orientation in a rush. I needed to get in, take a photo for my student ID or some kind of identification that said I lived in San Diego, and get out. The administrative office at Torrey Pines was closing in two hours and I needed to get my resident card as soon as possible, no time to waste. It was too good to be true; preferred tee times at Torrey Pines for as low as $25 at twilight, combined with two other courses around the city, including Balboa Park and Mission Bay. It was a recipe for some serious last minute cramming and late night essay writing. But even before I helped myself to some complimentary stickers and a lanyard on my way out of orientation, I knew it would be worth it. Nothing good gets written in college before 11 o’clock at night.
Most days however, driving all the way out to La Jolla didn’t feel like it was in the cards for me. It was a whole ordeal that could become more arduous than enjoyable. The crowded club house and putting green is usually surrounded by non-golf wanderers, and getting out of La Jolla and back into Point Loma, although close, was painfully slow traffic. Both the North and South courses, the latter being a two time U.S. Open venue, were good courses for the resident rate. But if you don’t live within San Diego County, it is exponentially too much when paying the non-resident rate, clocking in at around $223 on a weekday. I would really only play there if a friend was in town and wanted to check it off his list, or if I was yearning for a backbreaking round. This being said, people from all over the world still come, pay, and tirelessly scrape their ball further and further up the narrow fairways. No one in their right golfing mind would want to play either of those courses everyday. The best time (and when I say “best time” I really mean the only good time) to play Torrey Pines is the week after The Farmers Insurance Open, the annual PGA tour stop held in late January and a staple of the season’s West Coast Swing. If one is to play a course in which its entire existence is to be difficult, then might as well play it when it’s impossible. Everything is spick and span from a maintenance perspective, from the carpet like fairways, ankle twisting rough, and greens the speed of your cool uncle’s pool table. And the best part about the experience is that the bleachers and club tents are still up, so that when you do finally get to the 18th green, whether it be in regulation or chunking two balls into the pond guarding its front left side, an opportunity to make a putt and dramatically fist pump in front of thousands of ghost fans feels more like being a gladiator than the common hack. But my eyes were opened to an option far better suited for my everyday sufficiencies, and it came unexpectedly in Biblical Greek 2007.
I walked into the classroom located in the Theology and Christian Ministry building on Point Loma’s campus not knowing that there were only 40 or so students in the major. So when I looked around the classroom and only counted 10 other heads, I thought I was in the wrong spot. I know it’s a small school, but it’s a Christian university. There’s got to be more people in a mandatory class than this. Finding a guy that seemed as though he knew where he was, I put my backpack down on the floor, sat next to him, and asked “Is this that one class that I’m looking for?”, trying to be as self-deprecatingly humorous as possible while shrouding my freshman-like incompetence at the same time.
“You wanna learn an ancient language no one speaks anymore?”, he said.
“That’s the one”, I said with a smile and a half-hearted chuckle.
“I fucking hope so, or else we’re both wasting our time”, the man replied. Oh, so it’s that kind of theology program, I thought to myself. The professor, a middle aged woman with a bob for a haircut (already a recipe for disaster, I should’ve known), came in, introduced herself, and passed out a syllabus. Syllabus day is always a breeze, any high schooler with half of a brain can tell you that. The only requirement in getting through the day with good graces, and some could say even a leg up, is the occasional nod of the head and maybe a good joke. As all of us students were looking over the page just handed to us, we heard a strange alien-like sound coming from the professor’s mouth. She was reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Koine Greek, the language that the original New Testament is written in and what Jesus spoke most commonly behind Aramaic. It’s the language we were supposed to learn in 18 weeks, but it might as well have been Klingong to us.
“Did you guys understand any of that?”, she said with a raise of her eyebrows and a cheeky smile, insinuating that she wanted to make a spectacle of confusing us with gibberish on our first day. There was some sporadic, nervous laughter that buffered the classically awkward moment, but my mind went to a different place entirely. She couldn’t get off that easily.
“It’s all Greek to me”, I replied. I got a bigger, actually authentic laugh, and felt pretty good inside. I executed the joke, now I just needed to execute the head nods and I’ll be set. And thinking as though I had won the room’s favor, including the professor’s, I looked around with the satisfaction of being the class clown, even if it was for a slight moment. But as my attention shifted from watching my classmates enjoy what I had to say, I glanced over to my professor visibly disturbed. She has to get that joke. Come on, you can’t teach Greek and not expect that joke at least once a semester.
“It seems like someone didn’t read the syllabus fully”, she said with a stab with wide, glaring eyes. Uh oh, someone’s offended.
“What’s up?”, I responded.
“As long as you are in this class, you will never say that again. Do you understand me?” I was thoroughly confused at this point until I turned the syllabus over to its backside and saw “Never say ‘It’s all Greek to me’” in bolded, underlined lettering.
“Isn’t that a little funny though? You can’t tell me that you’ve never laughed at that”, I said with a wince. Everyone else’s laughter started to hush down a bit. All the air had been sucked out of the room.
“Not one bit, young man”, the professor snapped. Looked like my good graces formula didn’t quite pan out. And although at the time there seemed to be no positive about any part of that scarring situation, I got stopped unexpectedly after class.
“You have some thick skin for taking her on like that”, a voice said from behind. It was the guy I sat next to at the beginning of class. His name was Zac, and after the pleasantries and introductions, the guards came tumbling down with a simple “Boy, I need a drink after that. You wanna get a beer or something?” I looked at my watch, tried for just a moment to care about what class I had to get to next, forgot that terribly boring idea, and obliged. I didn’t want to be rude and reject such a kind offer. It was the first day, and Lord knows I needed a friend in that class.
Zac was in his early 30s and was built from pure muscle from head to toe. Everything about him screamed man’s man, especially when we walked out to the parking lot and got in his brand new, lifted Dodge Ram truck. “Woah, nice truck. How are you able to afford this?” I was pretty confident in asking that intimate of a question. He was a college student after all.
“VA disability compensation checks”, Zac responded with a sly smile.
“That sounds like a long story”, I responded with a laugh.
“That it is. You’ll figure most of it out in the next hour or so”, he responded. I didn’t really know what Zac meant by that. Maybe he just didn’t want to talk about it, and I was totally okay with that. I had met my fair share of veterans whose back stories were just too sensitive. As we started driving south down I-5, I wondered what specific watering hole he had in mind. But when Zac took the exit for Coronado, hesitancy started to bubble up inside of me. He walked into the bar with a humble confidence, which I found surprising. No one walks in there with that kind of security unless they’re crazy, or they’re a SEAL. He had taken me to McP’s Irish Pub, one of the most famous Navy SEAL bars on the island, if not the country. Famous might not be the most apt description. Let’s go with notorious.
“Zac, what are we doing here?”, I asked feeling just a bit anxious. Unbeknownst to him, I had been in a bit of a scuffle with a hothead going through BUD/S, or Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training just a couple of weeks prior. Being that the SEAL headquarters was just down the street, there was no better place to unwind after a week of hauling telephone pole-sized logs up and down a beach and getting piledrived by freezing cold waves, than to a bar owned by an ex-SEAL. They were from LA and were Dodger fans, and shouldn’t have said anything about Pablo Sandoval, so in reality, they were actually asking for a jab of a comment. Getting knocked off a barstool and onto your back by guys who bench 350 and swim five miles a day is not a good feeling, but walking back into that place was surprisingly a worse one. It was a crawling sensation in my stomach that just screamed “Nico, what the hell are you doing”.
“You look nervous Nico. What’s the problem?”, Zac asked with furrowed eyebrows.
“Let’s just get in, have a beer, and get out, please” I felt like Ashton Kutcher in The Guardian, but without Kevin Costner sitting next to me to beat the snot out of anyone who came up to us with half of a pool stick. I avoided the island just on the off chance those same blue and white loving hooligans were cruisin’ for a bruisin’, let alone me trying to avoid the same bar. But even before I had fully made my case to Zac, he had greeted the bartender by name, shaken hands with four guys, and sat down with them. I almost felt the click that took place in my head. “Oh, Zac’s a SEAL”.
He was meeting with two of his friends he had been in the teams with, and introduced me as “the ballsiest guy at Point Loma”, which could be interchanged for “stupidest guy is his class”, but I didn’t care about those slight discrepancies in front of my new bad-ass friends. Then something came up that was unprecedented: they started to talk about each other's golf games. They actually couldn’t stop, and it was the main topic of conversation, especially after I told them that I also partook. “No way! How often do you play? Where’s your favorite spot? Are you any good?”, came out of their mouths at an alarmingly fast rate for the stupidest guy in Zac’s class to digest. Every one of them, including Zac, had just started to learn the game, and their mouths and wallets were all hooked onto the game already. “You gotta come out to the Loma Club with us sometime then”, one of Zac’s friends said.
“The Loma Club?”, I wondered. “Never heard of it.”
The Loma Club has gone under many names before its current one. It was built in the early 1900s as a part of the San Diego Country Club, and was later acquired by the Navy in the 1920s for “physical fitness and recruit training” as part of the newly-built Naval Training Station. The faded red, stucco clubhouse was built in 1922 and is still recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as a “Historic Use Golf Clubhouse”. 82-time PGA Tour winner and seven-time major champion Sam Snead was tasked as “athletic specialist”, the name being as close to a head professional as the government could muster with something as “civy”, or civilian, as a golfer. He served in the Navy from 1942 to 1944 at this very course. Its name back then was Sail Ho Golf Course, and its history is well worth taking note of, attracting the likes of young amateurs from around the greater San Diego area to play its coveted nine holes, including Craig Stadler and Phil Mickelson. Built on the hillside separating Rosecrans Avenue and Liberty Station, The Loma Club was the perfect place for the everyday inhale of fresh-cut grass, acting as a sanctuary from the troubles and annoyances from the outside world. The San Diego International departure path is about 300 feet above the course. Being the busiest, single runway airport in the world, there is no shortage of loud, boisterous jet engines making their presence known in your backswing. But that’s all part of the experience, it even adds to the feeling of sanctuary and place. Instead of feeling like the player is on a golf course surrounded by other people, it makes the player feel like they're downtown, surrounded by the active life that is everyday in San Diego.
After I played there for the first time with Zac and his friends, I couldn’t stop going back. I was there so often actually, that being put off by the mowing lines resulted in asking the superintendent to drive one of his vintage machines along the Poa annua ridden fairways. He said yes without even asking me my name, and there began my new-found volunteer job for the semester. The mandatory chapel services back at school didn’t seem to be as important as keeping the continuous fairway between number eight and number nine perfect, making seamless shortgrass between the two and my assigned portion of the property worth its weight in gold. And however minute it seemed to be to the normal, golfing world, it was worth it to me. I was responsible for such a self-proclaimed masterpiece. It didn’t matter what I was going through at the time; school trouble, girl trouble, or just everyday incompetence, I could always show up to the Loma Club and cut some grass. What felt even better was the locals’ encouragement and inclusiveness. It wasn’t out of the blue to be invited for a twilight six-some after a couple hours on the mower. They respected the work and the care put into their neighborhood course. But even if I didn’t golf and was simply looking for a good group of guys and gals to let loose with, I’d swing by the Loma Club first.
Rancho Santa Fe, La Costa, and other San Diego staples were not yet built when City Center Golf Course was constructed in 1952 for a generation that still looked at courses with a sense of purpose, not just as recreation and maybe even wasted space. It was communal, and that’s why people went and played. The course was redesigned and expanded from 9 to 18 holes in the early ‘90s. The locals call it “Goat Hill”, but I know it more as a location that created and fostered something that most courses don’t even think about: a sense of place.
Goat Hill Park is an interesting place. It’s hard for me to really pin down its exact target audience, probably because the first time I visited, there was a foursome teeing off of the first hole without a single shoe on and no more than 5 clubs in a bag, and a separate foursome on the range that were wearing all, newly released Linksoul™ apparel. The latter made sense afterwards when I started to slowly realize that Linksoul pretty much runs the course. The Oceanside based golf and lifestyle apparel company has had its way with beach-loving middle aged men for years, and made a fairly preeminent place for itself in the market, even sponsoring some PGA Tour players and a couple of lucky SoCal collegiate programs. John Ashworth has been in the business longer than I’ve been alive; not only creating Ashworth Golf Apparel but also the greatest poster to go along with it. Just imagine Fred Couples and John Cook in the backseat of a Cadillac convertible, with Jim Nantz driving and Ernie Els riding shotgun, all previously stated icons being sponsored by Ashworth. If John and the Ashworth executives ever put that poster in a storefront window and couldn’t sell any polos, then they should’ve just given up on the very brand itself. But they didn’t, far from it. And in 2008, Taylor Made bought Ashworth for $26.5 million. A year later, John and his nephew Geoff Cunningham conceived an apparel company where a golfer could have one wardrobe for his favorite sport and for life as well.
I got off of I-5 at Oceanside Boulevard and could see just a sliver of the course on the hill, specifically a particularly exciting hole in which it looked as though the green was on the edge of a cliff. It was the par-3 7th and what I would later come to know as “the highway hole”. I also figured out that the “edge of a cliff” visual was a common thread through the entirety of the course, those cliffs making balls vortex in unwanted directions so often that the locals refer to the phenomenon as being “Goated”. The music amplifiers outside the pro shop weren’t there to announce the next group on the tee but to blast reggae and classic rock hits for all those on the putting green and driving range to enjoy. This being something that I had never experienced before, but immediately fell in love with. The photographs above the Linksoul merchandise held portraits of celebrities like Mark Wahlberg, Adam Scott, Kelly Slater, and Bill Murray all wearing the same shirt: “Save Goat Hill”.
The course was designated as public land in the ‘80s, a very good sign for those wanting confidence in its longevity. All “public land” means is that no one can develop the land without a vote from the public. Environmental agencies were the least of Goat Hill’s worries, the word “develop” mostly associated with someone wanting to make millions off a new strip mall or apartment complex. The course’s mismanagement started with the proprietor’s death in 2004. “Lud'', as people called him, was the course’s guardian and kindred spirit, the man who re-did the course back in the 80s. Without him, the politicians pounced on their best new opportunity to make some reasonable revenue. It needed to be saved, and indeed it was. March 19th, 2014 was the final nail in the coffin for those wanting to see the course’s doors close. In one of the city’s most historic town hall meetings, the citizens of Oceanside and the grander golfing public stood beside the communal gift that is Goat Hill Park, identifying it as “the people’s park of Oceanside''. Since then, the course has gone under numerous endeavors to make it even more communal, most notably The Playground: a three hole, par three course where kids and their parents can play for free. I was intrigued to see how many birdies I could possibly make on that course, but I hadn’t even played the actual course yet and headed over to the first tee.
It was a Friday, and I had zero clue that the weekly skins game was taking place. Normally, when there’s a tournament being held at a public course, no one is really allowed to go out and play other than those in the tournament. I was defeated, and had come all this way for nothing. But as I started to walk back to my truck with slumped head and shoulders, I heard a shout from behind me. “Hey, do you want to play?”, said a man with a driver in hand.
“Yeah. But I thought there was a tournament going on”
“It’s an open tournament, my guy”, the man said with a friendly, SoCal style smile. “Do you have $20?” I hurriedly reached into my pockets and magically found a crumpled up $20 bill, raising it up above my head as though I found one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets. He introduced himself as Eli, and was covered from head to toe in Linksoul. Wearing my fair share of it, I was excited to be at its mecca.
A couple of holes in, I asked, “Do you work for Linksoul?”
“Kind of”, Eli said with a face that seemed to say he had never been asked that question before. He was the General Manager of the course, so I guessed that he got pretty much whatever he wanted for next to nothing. A couple of months later, I opened a Linksoul catalog and recognized someone who was wearing the same fit Eli had on that day. A closer look resulted in me realizing it was Eli himself. The odds that the same day I played with him was the same day that shot was taken? No clue, but it’s an interesting hypothesis to make.
Eli and I talked shop for hours, and I really started to understand the importance of community at Goat Hill when I asked Eli why the course was getting so much attention recently. “Community, ” he stated. Why is the atmosphere unlike anything I’ve seen before at a golf course? “Community”. Why do you like this place so much? “Community”. It is central to its identity. A community that, once a year, convenes to raise thousands of dollars for the The North County Junior Golf Association and the Goat Hill Park Caddie & Leadership Program via a persimmon wood exhibition match called The Wishbone Brawl. The event normally takes place the weekend before Thanksgiving (I told you John Ashworth was really good at marketing). The four-man best ball teams in 2022 consisted of Xander Schauffele and Dean Wilson against Fred Couples and Geoff Ogilvy. No ropes. No shoes. No problem.
Goat Hill Park and The Loma Club have both tapped into the nervous system of the game. What can we as those wanting to further the development of our own local courses learn from these two havens? Start with an atmosphere that screams inclusivity. A good friend of mine who has also found these two places to be an oasis, especially Goat Hill Park, continually comes back home and says, “We need something like that here.” Closed gates and invite only clubs might have been the backbone and needed push for golf to take off in America, but public golf like this is the sport’s future. It is crucial this formula takes root. And if genuine love for the game is met with a genuine desire to share it with others, then your community will go to bat for you. Just ask John.
