A couple of weeks ago we shared with you what SCGA was planning in terms of rallying public opposition to the “Public Golf Endangerment Act” [AB 672 – Garcia; D-Bell Gardens], a bill we termed the most damaging piece of anti-golf legislation in a generation. As promised, that campaign launched yesterday.

Immediately after Assembly Member Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) amended what we are now calling the “Public Golf Endangerment Act” to transform it from a politically clumsy bill into what we immediately termed a much more politically palatable and thus saleable bill, the gist of which became the addition of $50 million in financial incentives to chop 22% of the state’s golf stock into housing, SCGA informed its 185,000 members of that fact – something we have continued to do in the 60 days since through various different communication portals, all in an attempt to set the stage for engaging rank-and-file golfers to find it in their personal interest to let their legislators know what they think of singling golf and ONLY golf out among the state’s myriad open space/recreational activities for chopping up into housing tracts.

That’s the way too many view the golf courses in their neighborhood. Whether the golf course is a private club that restricts access or a municipal course that begs it matters little.

As the statewide golf community prepares to cope with the twin onslaughts of drought and a bill that proposes to chop 22% of California’s golf courses into residential developments (AB 672 – Garcia; D-Bell Gardens), we’d like to take a moment to put what will necessarily be some very tactical short-term responses into an overarching strategy capable of getting beyond tactical reaction toward strategic proactivity.

Virtually every major newspaper in California carried a front-page story last week about Californians having responded to Governor Newsom’s call for 15% voluntary water cutbacks by cutting back a paltry 1.8%.

California’s 2021 legislative session closed Friday. Some bills are on their way to the Governor’s Office for signature; others didn’t quite make it this session. As in all legislative sessions, the vast majority of the bills filed at the beginning of session died somewhere along the way, most of them much earlier than Friday at midnight.

All politics are local. As is the case with all clever aphorisms, that one too has its limits. Some politics are state. More germane to this update, some public policies that affect the golf industry are decided at the state level. And it is to a few of these that we address your attention today.

At risk of hammering away at what you likely already know, here is how California’s major reservoirs stood as of midnight August 8.

We were so impressed with the Golf Strategic Plan that Los Angeles County released last week that we thought we should share it with others.

SCGA members who live in proximity to Los Angeles County’s Victoria Golf Course in Carson will be receiving information from SCGA later this morning (Friday) about how to participate in an online survey as well as two (2) public meetings in August about what to do in the wake of the demise of the Kimmelman half of what was supposed to be the redevelopment of this long troubled 18-hole regulation golf course.