Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan Contains 54 Holes of Golf

November 06, 2023

The Sepulveda Basin is the largest public open space in the San Fernando Valley and contains 54 holes of public/municipal golf, which includes Woodley Lakes GC, Encino GC and Balboa GC. Due to surrounding neighborhoods significantly lacking green open spaces, the City of Los Angeles launched the Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan Project to establish a long-term strategic plan for the future of the Basin.

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The initial Vision included options to eliminate 9, 18 or 27 holes of golf from the Basin’s current 54-hole layout. However, the recent release of the “Draft Plan” indicates the City’s intention to retain all 54 holes of golf.

Additionally, the maintenance of those 54 holes that are to be improved in three ways:

• The “refresh/upgrade” of Woodley Lakes GC
• The re-routing of those holes on the Encino Golf Course that are the first to flood when the LA River’s waters are diverted during heavy rainfall events
• The repurposing of the unused acreage surrounding much of the three Basin golf courses as natural habitat.

The ”Plan” is now so beneficial to this bulwark of San Fernando Valley public golf that the SCGA was able to issue a hearty endorsement of it in the Los Angeles Daily News. The SCGA will issue a formal comment to that effect along with a suggestion that we believe will be well received to consider the construction of a junior golf/developmental golf similar to the Tregnan Golf Academy in Griffith Park within the footprint of the current Woodley Lakes Golf Course – a “comment” that we also believe will have the full support of the city’s Recreation and Park Department.

Those of you with appetite for reviewing the full 272-page “Draft Plan” thereon can click here to review the Homepage of the website the city has created for the project. The Homepage connects you both to the full “Plan” and a simple electronic form that allows you to seamlessly and very quickly issue your own comments upon it, something we highly encourage you to do.

It’s important that golfers make clear the need to maintain 54 holes of desperately needed public golf in the heart of the San Fernando Valley. No doubt there will be those who issue comments about reducing that existing golf. And consider throwing in the need for a junior golf developmental facility while you’re at it.

[Another example in a long string of examples of how a golf association can amass the facts of the matter as opposed to a version of them provided by those intent on repurposing golf course land for their preferred use, make those facts known to the decision-makers, and then rally its members and member clubs behind those “facts” to get a verdict in the public arena favorable to golf’s cause.]