Golf: One pretty picture

Richard Dunn

One week before Christmas in the millennium year, strange things

are happening: Severe and unusual weather around the nation, for sure.

Including Newport Beach.

When was the last time Southern California experienced conditions like

the Santa Ana Winds, but without the wind?

For dice-rolling television producers of the Hyundai Team Matches at

Pelican Hill Golf Club, exciting golf and perfect weather are two very

important factors over which they have zero control.

Makes you wonder? Could the Team Matches have come off any better on

television? Probably not.

And for those working the event, Mother Nature provided a stunning

sunset over Catalina Island to cap a sunny Sunday at Pelican Hill, where

temperatures reached 78 degrees with a slight ocean breeze.

As clear blue skies and a lush, green golf course covered the

television screen for the Team Matches, ABC news breaks showed pictures

of late-season tornado damage in the South and crushing blizzards in the

Midwest.

Talk about two different worlds.

We’re watching sailboats dot the ocean and Jack Nicklaus play his best

golf of 2000, while Midwestern cars are stranded on snow-covered highways

and some mobile home owners in the South are suddenly homeless.

Thus, the world can use some feel-good stories and good television,

and, for that, the entertainment dollar reached a zenith for the new

title sponsor of the event produced by Terry Jastrow and Gaylord

Entertainment, formerly Jack Nicklaus Productions.

There’s no getting around the brilliance of great December weather in

Newport Beach, especially when live television is involved.

But fans at the golf course, once again, struggled to get around.

My biggest beef is this: Many people on foot, including myself, were

confused upon reaching the main intersection of Pelican Hill’s two

courses in front of the clubhouse and down the primary walkway from the

lower patio area, which leads directly to the popular practice putting

green.

There was no signage telling people where to go. As I stood and

watched, I noticed others doing the same thing I did: Arriving at the

intersection and turning their heads like a bird in a cuckoo clock,

wondering where to go after buying a $35 ticket (I was there with a media

credential).

A shuttle service was provided to take fans from the parking lot to

the 14th hole on the Ocean North Course, but the signage wasn’t enough to

draw fans’ attention.

As fans walk up to Pelican Hill’s clubhouse, they’re seeing a lot of

things -- many for the first time -- and are easily distracted by a

beautiful Pacific Ocean and the club’s landscape and architecture.

Furthermore, golf tournaments generate a lot of moving parts (i.e.,

people walking around with headsets and walkie-talkies). There are food

and souvenir vendors. There’s valet parking, a blimp hovering in the big

blue sky. Signs are easily missed.

The intersection at issue is the club’s main artery to the practice

putting green, a favorite spot for golf fans at golf tournaments, and is

located in a popular location in front of the clubhouse with breathtaking

views of the ocean, an area that signifies the center of the two

championship resort courses.

“They need an information booth here,” a man said Saturday morning,

who, like myself, decided to start walking toward the large white

hospitality tents in the distance, a 22-minute walk one way, which

includes severe hills (watch your heart monitor!).

About halfway through my stroll to the tents, I looked over my

shoulder and noticed the man turned back. He was alone and came to watch

golf. I suppose he eventually got on the shuttle to the 14th hole, but it

was disappointing to see his reaction to the experience.

After making the rounds, I arrived back at the intersection.

“I wish they had a shuttle here to bring you over there,” said one

lady, a guest of a Hyundai employee and part of a group of seven, all of

whom were clueless about where to go or where to turn.

My argument, however, was immediately dismissed.

“Unless you went through valet parking, you had to have seen the sign

that says shuttle to the 14th hole,” tournament director Gary Pollard

said, when asked about the confusing main intersection and why there was

no tournament signage there.

OK, I missed the shuttle sign walking up. But I wasn’t looking for it,

either.

This time, I went back and checked closely. I found the sign, but only

one. It had blue lettering on a white board. The letters were too small,

the sign itself didn’t get your attention and people simply walked past

without really giving it much notice.

“The signage around here is awful,” said one food and beverage service

manager.

The bottom line: Hopefully Hyundai and ABC television will come back

to Pelican Hill for the 2001 Team Matches. There are definite logistics

to be worked out between tournament operations and the Irvine Co., which

owns the golf course and needs to allow an on-course shuttle service so

people don’t die walking the hilly course.

The intersection is only one detail, but I watched two dozen people in

less than 10 minutes Saturday bob and weave their heads once they reached

the Confusing Crossroads, where a Pelican Hill sign has arrows pointing

to the first tee of the Ocean South and Ocean North courses, but nothing

about the golf tournament.

Aside from fans’ frustrations in certain areas, it couldn’t have been

a better event with playoffs on the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour championship

matches and the Golden Bear doting over his own golf game in a Senior PGA

Tour victory with legendary Tom Watson.