Mother Nature Takes Vicious Swing

Despite a break in the recent heavy rains, dozens of Southland golf courses remained closed Tuesday as course operators from Ventura to Riverside Counties assessed flood and mudslide damage caused by the storms over the last two weeks.

Six-month-old Angeles National Golf Club in Sunland lost its 17th green when the nearby Tujunga reservoir overflowed, sending water rushing down the Tujunga wash and sweeping the green down a hillside, Marketing Director Victor Castro said.

Black Gold Golf Club in Yorba Linda incurred significant damage to its 13th hole when mudslides pushed dirt up to 20 yards into the fairway, General Manager Eric Lohman said.

The third hole at Harding Golf Course in Griffith Park now contains a six-foot-wide sinkhole running the width of the fairway, caused by a drain line that broke when a tree uprooted, according to Los Angeles Golf Manager John Mallon.

Lost Canyons in Simi Valley and Eagle Glen in Corona reported flooding and minor damages, and courses in flood control basins, such as Encino and Balboa in the Sepulveda Dam Golf Complex and Anaheim Dad Miller reported up to six feet of water in some places.

There were also unconfirmed reports of significant damage to Green River in Corona and Goose Creek in Mira Loma.

“We’ve got quite a cleanup process ahead,” said Mallon, who oversees the 13 courses operated by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. “We’ve got trees and mud and silt and plastic and wood and all kinds of debris. We even had some fish wash up on the fairways at Balboa and Encino.”

Surprisingly, several coastal-area courses reported no significant damage. Los Verdes Golf Course on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, in fact, did not close at all during the storms and had at least 10 players every day.

Trump National Los Angeles, formerly known as Ocean Trails, became famous when a landslide sent part of the 18th hole crashing toward the ocean in 1999, but the course emerged unscathed as the skies turned blue Tuesday.

“We were looking to see what would happen and we came through without any problems,” said General Manager Mike van der Goes, whose course is still under construction to repair damages from that original landslide. “It was a very good test and a very good success.”

Trump National was among the lucky ones. For others, it could take a week or more before they open, though some will push to open by this weekend.

Angeles National, which also lost its 18th tee box, opened nine holes Tuesday and plans to fully reopen Friday. The 416-yard par-four 18th will be turned into a par three, with tee boxes in the fairway, and a little-used extra hole will be added to the front nine while the 17th is rebuilt.

“Everything else is in really good shape,” Castro said.

Lohman said he expects to have Black Gold operational by Thursday. He said there were “six or seven” significant mudslides throughout the course, some of which moved earth 30 yards.

“This is the most storm damage I’ve seen at a golf course by far,” Lohman said. “And we’re causing more to clean it up. Any time you need bulldozers, you know it’s serious.”

Several course operators said they would need to repair drainage pipes, irrigation systems, roof leaks and cracks in cart paths and roadways.

Then there is the matter of lost revenue that affects all courses, damaged or not. Mallon said that course closures have cost the city “in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Matt Donovan of Donovan Bros. Golf, the company that manages newly opened Arroyo Trabuco, said the physical damage to that course was minimal, but the economic impact will be tough to swallow.

He said the course remained open during the onslaught of rain, but that there were at least four days since Dec. 28 that nobody played.

“My father used to get real cranky when it rained and now I know why,” Donovan said. “But we’re an outdoor business, so I guess we’re at the mercy of mother nature.”

Times staff writer Joel Greenberg contributed to this report.