Riviera Has Another Believer

The first time Noboru Watanabe played Riviera Country Club, he knew he had to belong. The initiation was reasonable--$108 million. But of course, that included carts and green fees.

That’s probably the most money ever paid to join a golf club but golfer Watanabe not only joined it, he bought it.

The repercussions were seismic. The buyout evoked the typical responses to Japanese investment in America: “Who won the war, anyway?” “What’s next, the White House?” “Why don’t we form a syndicate to buy Mt. Fuji?” And so on.

Riviera is a golfing heirloom. Ben Hogan played here. So did Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford. Humphrey Bogart used to sit out under the tree on the 12th green and watch the L.A. Open. Gable teed it up here. Babe Didrikson played her first round of golf here. A U.S. Open was held here, a PGA and 28 L.A. Opens.

Rumors flew. Members bristled. The course, 168 acres of the finest real estate on the California littoral, a sycamore-strewn canyon hard by the Pacific shores, would be subdivided, they predicted. Or it would become a forest of high rises.

After all, who would pay $108 million for a golf course? Why, you could buy the New York Yankees for that. Chunks of Fifth Avenue. Most of Rhode Island.

The outcry grew so fervid, the purchasers resorted to the unusual tactic of postponing final takeover for a year while they preserved the fiction that they were only buying 49% of the club for the time being. Golfers were not fooled. Riviera was finished as a golf course, they told themselves gloomily.

They reckoned without golfer Watanabe. He didn’t so much buy Riviera as join it. He has joined that forlorn company, that long ghostly crew of Riviera members who are sure that, one of these days, they will break 90 on this chamber of golfing horrors. One day, they will get up the hill with their tee shot on 18 and one day they will reach some of the par-fours in two.

Turn Riviera into a shopping mall? Noboru Watanabe shudders as much as Ben Hogan might. The Watanabe family owns enough things with elevators in them. They want to own some things with sand traps in them.

The deal was finalized last week, and the 14th fairway is not a rice paddy, you can still buy hot dogs in the shack at the eighth green, score cards are still in English--the Japanese word for one over par is bogey anyway, and one under is birdie --and if you want sushi, bring your own.

It is locker-room scuttlebutt that initiation fees for club membership in Japan run a million dollars or more. The supposition was, it might be cheaper for the Japanese businessman to play Riviera, even given the flight cost plus lodging.

Watanabe points out, though, that there are easier commutes from Osaka than Pacific Palisades. Hawaii, for instance. The Philippines. There may even be cheaper real estate.

The Watanabes, who do business as Marukin Shoji, Ltd., insist they were not buying a golf course, they were buying a tradition.

“This is precisely why we bought Riviera, because of what it is and what it has been,” Watanabe says. “We were in the building and leasing business and we wanted to diversify into resorts and leisure businesses. We knew the field was more advanced in the U.S. than in Japan. We looked into facilities in Florida and Arizona and other states but we didn’t find one that was good for us. Finally, I visited Riviera. And I looked at the golf course and I said, ‘This is it.’ ”

Riviera has that effect on you. I thought the same thing 40 years ago, the first time I saw Hogan bring it to its knees. I thought it was only a question of time before I humbled it, too--shoot, say, an 89. On my own ball.

Riviera does that to you, too. It’s like a coquettish woman who winks at you behind her fan. Gives you the come-on. But just when you think she’s all yours, wham! You find yourself sitting on the curb with a wilted bouquet, wondering who’s kissing her now.

Some years ago, the great author, Dan Jenkins, stopped me derisively in the locker room at the PGA Championship.

“Gibby Gilbert just shot a 29 on the front nine of your course. What’s so tough about Riviera?” he demanded accusingly.

“Why don’t we wait till the back nine, at least?” I suggested. “Why don’t we wait till tomorrow?”

Gibby Gilbert shot a 37 on the back nine. The next day, he shot 80. That’s Riviera.

This is what Watanabe says he is buying: “We have no intention of changing the character or the tradition. We want to keep Riviera Riviera. We did not acquire it for economic reasons but for reasons of its historic presence. It is a matter of prestige for our company.”

It is Japanese to respect shrines, to honor ancestors. I do, too. Hogan and Snead won at Riviera. I wish Palmer and Nicklaus had, too. (At least, Watson did--twice.)

But if I bought Riviera, I would make a few subtle changes. I would move the tee on No. 18 up on the hill (right next to the ladies’ tee). I would make No. 9 a par-five (the architect liked to think it was a par-four). I would eliminate No. 12 altogether. I might want to put a plaque on No. 16, where I made my hole-in-one. That’s because it’s not only the only time I ever broke par on a hole at Riviera, but the only time I even made par.

No, I wouldn’t worry about anybody owning Riviera. Riviera owns Riviera. I think Noboru Watanabe knows that by now. If he doesn’t, he will.

And don’t worry. If you ever want to bid on the club, wait some day till he comes up the 18th with his face red, smoke coming out of his ears, his ball in the elephant grass lying six, and he’s already lost the nine, the 18 and the automatic presses. Make your pitch for the club then. He’ll give it to you.