If you play golf in Northern California and parts of Nevada, belong to a golf club, and carry an official United States Golf Association handicap, then you are a member of the Northern California Golf Association. Headquartered in Pebble Beach, the NCGA is the largest regional golf association in America.
The NCGA was founded in 1901 by five golf clubs, namely Menlo, Claremont, Presidio, San Jose and San Francisco, all private country clubs that are still in existence today. Nowadays, the NCGA consists of 400 public and private golf clubs as well as 850 associate clubs. Associate clubs are often called traveling clubs. The NCGA runs more than 50 regional tournament, conducts a circuit of point tournament events ranging from the longtime San Francisco City Amateur and the Alameda Commuters to the Lake County Partners Championship, which is contested annually at Buckingham Golf and Country Club.
The NCGA also runs two golf courses, Poppy Hills in Pebble Beach and Poppy Ridge in Livermore. It trains and provides rules officials for its championships as well as many other regional events such as high school and college championships as well as USGA qualifiers. It runs a junior golf circuit, rates golf courses, and also offers consultation services to member golf courses with regard to turf management.
Two years ago, the NCGA took on a new endeavor that has grown in popularity. The NCGA runs outings for its members at golf courses throughout the region. Along with son Nick and NCGA rules official Jack Lucich, I entered the very first of those member outings in June of 2007. It was held at San Jose Country Club, a private course that was one of the founding NCGA clubs and was designed by Scottish professional Tom Nicoll in 1915.
I didn”t especially enter that inaugural members outing because I wanted to be a part of something new or cutting edge. I entered it because I had never played San Jose Country Club, didn”t know anyone at that club who was a member who might want to sponsor me as a guest, and because I”m now at a stage in my golfing life where I like to collect golf courses. Any chance I get, I like to play a different course, especially a private one that isn”t always accessible and has some history and tradition behind it. Also, because members pay a bundle of money to belong to a private club, they are almost always in pristine condition.
This year, the NCGA”s member-only outings have developed to such a point that they have scheduled 39 such events running from early February through mid-November. The first event for 2009 is at Catta Verderra Country Club in Lincoln on Monday, Feb. 2. Catta Verderra is a high-end public course with green fees in the range of $125. While the name may confuse some, it used to be called Twelve Bridges and for several years hosted an LPGA Tour event. The last NCGA member tourney is at Serrano Country Club in El Dorado Hills on Monday, Nov. 16. Serrano is a private Robert Trent Jones designed country club that used to host the PGA Senior Tour Golf Rush. You can start and end the season by walking the very same fairways that Juli Inkster and Hale Irwin have walked.
For a course collector, there are a number of enviable outings. Green Hills Country Club in Millbrae is an Alister Mackenzie course that he designed in 1930, right after the Cypress Point project and just before he went to Georgia to build Augusta National, the home of the Masters. Green Hills is also hosting U.S. Senior Amateur qualifying later in August, so the NCGA outing could be a good way to get in a quality practice round.
For those who don”t necessarily want to wander too far beyond the confines of the Redwood Empire, there are a handful of great outings. Santa Rosa Country Club, a Jack Fleming design, hosts an even on Monday, May 18. Mayacama Golf Club, an exclusive enclave in the hills just east of Windsor, is the host course on Tuesday, July 14. Mayacama is a Jack Nicklaus design that has been a U.S. Open qualifying site for the last few years. Silverado Country Club in Napa is a 36-hole resort course that used to be the site of the Senior Tour”s Transamerica Tourney. In the 1960s, the PGA Tour went there for the playing of the Kaiser Invitational. It hosts an NCGA outing on July 26.
Some of the events have themes. You can play Poppy Hills the day after the conclusion of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, getting to experience the course as it is set up for Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson and the rest of the big boys. The event at Sevillano Links in Corning will feature a course setup where every hole is a par-5. Sevillano was designed by long ball knocker John Daly. Only women can play at Almaden Country Club in San Jose. Fittingly, Almaden was once an LPGA Tour site.
Other courses on the list include San Luis Obispo Country Club, the home course of Loren Roberts; storied Lake Merced Country Club in Daly City, a frequent U.S. Open stage two site; Los Altos Country Club, the home course of Juli Inkster and her husband, Brian, the head pro; and Sequoyah Country Club in Oakland, another old-time classic where a young Ben Hogan cashed his first top-five check on the PGA Tour in the 1930s.
This program is probably a godsend to some of the region”s private country clubs, many of which are in economic crisis during these financially troubling times. You”ll note that many of the events are on Mondays, a day when private clubs are traditionally closed. When we played at San Jose Country Club, there were 128 golfers in the field and it was obviously a big money day for the club at $125 per linkster. Clubs like Diablo, Yolo Fliers, Butte Creek, Blackhawk and the rest could probably use an infusion of cash from an active Monday of visiting golfers.
To find out more about the NCGA”s members-only outings, check out the NCGA”s Web site at www.ncga.org. If nothing else, it”s the newest and perhaps easiest way to collect a golf course you”ve always wanted to play.
