Shortly after hearing there was a three-hour wait to play the Torrey Pines South Course, a Canadian golfer heard good news about the North Course.
An abbreviated, nine-hole version of Torrey North opened for public play yesterday, 15 days after Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open on the South.
Toronto's Luciano Scatozza, a broker in town for the National Association of Chain Drugstores conference, put up $54 to play nine holes on the North. Scatozza did so figuring he'd finish in time to hear Torrey Pines starter Jake Perkhiser call his name for a round on the South.
“It's Torrey Pines, and it's right after the U.S. Open,” Scatozza said of the $214 ($160 for the South as a nonresident) he spent yesterday if he played 27 holes at Torrey Pines.
Players didn't rush to the truncated North. A twosome led the charge, followed by a single, a foursome, a twosome, a threesome and another single that made up early play. It takes less than two hours to play the present routing of the 10th through 17th holes, with the par-5 ninth serving as the finishing hole.
By 8:20, Perkhiser had sent off 27 golfers, including four with reservations.
“Half the people who went North did so because the Ladies' Club is on the South,” Perkhiser said. “That includes one foursome from England, and God only knows where they went.”
Jerry Lillard of Clairemont had the 8:56 reserved time on the North and played as a single.
“I'm going to go 18 holes, play it twice,” said Lillard, who paid the senior rate of $25. Fees went up slightly yesterday on both courses.
“I was going to play the South, but I was one group too late, and I got here at 5:30,” said Dennis Zogg, a Navy intelligence officer who joined three other players.
The North is hardly pristine, but city golf operations manager Jon Maddern and North superintendent Wayne Carpenter made it playable in short order.
The greens were punched and sanded a week ago, and there are some bothersome areas of dirt and mud, such as the 10-yard swath that runs parallel to the 14th green, 70 yards out, that had been the gravel road for the parking lot during the Open.
But for the most part, it's the still the kinder and friendlier North compared with the monster South.
“Any play on the North right now is better than what we had,” Maddern said. “Give it a week, more time to recover, and it will be even better.”
Notes
After 16 years with the city of San Diego,
Joann Mitcham is retiring as tournament director at Torrey Pines. Mitcham said she isn't sure what she's going to do but plans to make use of the many quality contacts she made in the golf community.
Also, John Howard, supervisor of starters, is leaving to go back to school and work on his golf game. Maddern said he will hire replacements for both.
Carpenter, the North superintendent, said the fourth-hole fairway is not dirt; it just looks that way now that the Ocean Village is down. He said the rye grass burned out and looks dead but could bounce back with water and sunlight.
He said grassy areas that don't come back will be resodded, but he's hoping to rescue as much natural turf as possible. He and Maddern are encouraged by the way some grass has come back.
Carpenter said the North's sprinkler system took some major hits during the USGA's construction period. He said workers hit sprinkler lines “50 to 60 times.”
Ed Zieralski: (619) 293-1225; ed.zieralski@uniontrib.com
