The Revitalization of Santa Ana CC

November 10, 2016

For those lucky enough to tee it up at Santa Ana CC in the coming months, you may walk out to the practice green and wonder if your navigation system is playing tricks on you.

Orange County’s first golf club, founded in 1901 as Santiago GC, has been revitalized to recapture the look and feel of golf courses from the “Golden Age” of golf architecture. Lakes and trees have been replaced with native areas and natural washes.

“We had major maintenance issues and a golf course that had a 1970s look and feel to it,” said Mike Pettit, Santa Ana CC chairman of the Golf Course Revitalization Project. “The (new) golf course has an old-school look and feel, but with all the modern amenities.”

The most important aspect of the new course is playability. The slopes and contours on the course have been crafted into the land, allowing players to use every club in the bag.

“We really wanted to add variety to the greens and hole yardages,” said Jay Blasi, course architect. “The goal was to create a more challenging course for the scratch players and a more playable track for the mid-to-high handicappers, all the while being environmentally responsible.”

With water conservation on everyone’s mind, turf was converted to native area in an effort to reduce water and provide a more natural appearance.

“Overall, we will reduce our water consumption by 66 million gallons per year by virtue of the native grass areas, a more efficient irrigation system and elimination of lakes and trees,” said Pettit. “The need to reduce water usage drove the need for a new design.”

The fairway may no longer be lined with trees that members had become accustomed to throughout the years, but the new course design was sure to utilize as much natural, repurposed material as possible.

An in-house carpenter crafted beautiful custom flat bottom benches, bunker rakes, tee markers, sand trap rakes and even flag sticks out of the red bark eucalyptus trees that used to live around the old course.

As for modern amenities, the practice range is a good place to start. Previously, the range was abbreviated with limited-flight golf balls. Today, members will enjoy a new, 340-yard double ended practice range equipped with Titleist ProV1s.

“It’s probably the most drastic improvement to the member experience,” said Pettit. “We’ve also got a 9-hole short course that is perfect for our members to grab a wedge, a beer and go get after it.”

After warming up each and every club in the bag, it’s time to get a feel for the spectacular Pure Distinction bentgrass on the club’s 22,500-square-foot practice green in front of the clubhouse.

“You’ll notice that the greens on the course vary greatly in size, shape, orientation and contour,” said Blasi. “In general, we tried to match the green design to the shot that would be played into the green.”

For example, on a long approach, Blasi’s team crafted a very large, deep green that would hold long shots. On the other hand, for one of the short par-4s, the green is smaller and has more contour to challenge a wedge shot.

The new greens average 5,525 square feet, almost 1.5 times the size of the old greens and unlike Kikuyu, Pure Distinction Bentgrass will play firm and fast, allowing players to hit a wide variety of shots with imagination and creativity.

If you’re having trouble finding the new Pure Distinction greens, odds are you’ll be playing out of one of the 53 visually striking bunkers. A 50/50 mix of Augusta White and Desert Sand provides great contrast to the green turf.

With environmental responsibility and playability for all handicaps at the forefront of the redesign, Santa Ana CC has already seen encouraging results.

The club has reduced 38 acres of turf and lakes, will reduce water consumption by 40 percent and has seen 65 new members since the announcement in 2014.

Change is tough, but oftentimes needed. As Southern California’s drought doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon, this Orange County staple has successfully rolled out the red carpet for future revitalizations.