Golf: Pelican Hill celebrating 10 years on earth

Richard Dunn

It’s hard to fathom that Pelican Hill Golf Club is 10 years old.

It seems like only yesterday when Tom Fazio and Donald Bren and a

bunch of Irvine Co. big shots hosted a grand opening on a golf course

(now called the Ocean South course) on land (now called Newport Coast)

never before trampled on by mankind.

Back then, in November 1991 when yours truly was still warming up to

the idea of scripting a weekly golf column, it was the first big thing

that happened to me on the watch.

A former colleague of mine, Pat Larkin, who once wrote about golf in

these pages, toured Pelican Hill during the groundbreaking and inspected

the then-new high-end daily fee resort course when only dirt grazed the

fairways and greens.

But, lucky me, the job got handed over before Pelican Hill actually

opened, and, when it came time for grand openings, voila! Guess who

covered the luncheon and subsequent golf outing?

That’s right. A guy new on the beat, who, frankly, wasn’t a golfer at

the time and was unable to get off the tee, played Pelican Hill’s

brand-new course by the Pacific Ocean.

Poor Bill Mitchell, the Irvine Co. executive who was unfortunate

enough to get paired with me in a foursome that also included Times

sportswriters (most of them laughing their heads off at my sideways

distance off the tee).

While I must admit I eventually discovered the bug a few years later

and began seeing shots actually rise in the air and go relatively

straight, the grand opening was a day I’ll never forget.

I had little business even playing the course, reserved for players

capable of hitting over deep canyons from hillside tee boxes. I was not

one of those players, but Mitchell & Co. held it together. I learned a

lesson that day in “keeping up” and not slowing down a group, even if it

meant jogging to retrieve a golf ball.

There are career milestones to remember, but this one was a baptism in

golf and a diamond in the rough.

Fazio, the golf course architect, also designed the Links Course

(later named the Ocean North course), which opened in November 1993. Bren

is chairman of the Irvine Co.

One of the goals for Pelican Hill was to host a major golf tournament,

which it accomplished in December 1999, when the Diners Club Matches were

played there.

Pelican Hill also hosted the event in 2000, when it was called the

Hyundai Team Matches (now contested at Monarch Beach Golf Links in Dana

Point). The Irvine Co. decided to no longer host the made-for-television

event.

During last year’s Hyundai Matches, John Jacobs of the Senior PGA Tour

said of Pelican Hill: “This golf club is magnificent. If this club is 36

holes (which it is) and it was a private club, it would probably cost $1

million to join.”

Considering how paying customers are getting harder to come by these

days for high-end public golf courses, maybe Jacobs has a good idea.

Tom Watson, also of the Senior Tour, said the greens on the Ocean

North course played like “mountain greens,” because of the slopes. “It’s

a big golf course, and the greens have subtle contours. They’re hard to

read. But it’s a beautiful golf course,” he added.

To honor its 10th year, Pelican Hill signed nearly 800 members to its

10-year anniversary program of special benefits and privileges.

Membership in the 10th Anniversary Club is available to anyone for a

fee of $50 and offers a variety of benefits, including: $150 green fees

on Sunday; 20% off range balls and merchandise in the golf shop;

invitations to special events for club members; membership in Southern

California Golf Association for handicap posting services; and a

commemorative bag tag. Details: (949) 760-0707.

Richard Dunn’s golf column appears every Thursday.