Picture this landscape of Tucson sports 20 years ago today:
The Colorado Rockies, with the Blake Street Bombers, were reporting for spring training at Hi Corbett Field. Phil Mickelson had just won the Northern Telecom Tucson Open. Dottie Pepper was about to win the Ping/Welch’s LPGA championship at Randolph North.
The Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago White Sox were awaiting construction of a new complex on Ajo Way. USA Baseball was formulating plans to move its headquarters to Reid Park. The PCL’s Tucson Toros were marketing tickets for a season in which Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi would be among visiting players.
The Tucson of 1995 was a baseball and golf paradise, but if you had to identify a front-runner, it was golf.
Tom Weiskopf was putting the final touches on his fashionable Golf Club of Vistoso in Oro Valley. The splashy Raven at Sabino Springs (now Arizona National) was about to make its debut, joining Jack Nicklaus’ La Paloma, the TPC’s Starr Pass and stylish Ventana Canyon, golf facilities that compared favorably to any of those built in Scottsdale, Palm Springs or any American golf mecca.
Time eroded and devastated Tucson’s baseball industry. It has all gone away.
The golf market similarly splintered; almost no course, public or private, big or small, has avoided financial distress.
The Golf Club of Vistoso and Arizona National, the two jewels that debuted in 1995, have gone to hell and back.
If you think Tiger Woods faces a daunting comeback, it’s nothing compared to what Vistoso and Arizona National have overcome.
Two years ago, a Vistoso member went public with his unhappiness and told the Star the once-grand golf course had become “a goat ranch.”
And it was.
Arizona National was Goat Ranch II.
The water had been shut off at both facilities. There was no money for daily maintenance. No money to fertilize grass, or even buy grass seed. You couldn’t even buy a golf ball at Vistoso; vendors would no longer give it credit.
The IRI Group, which earlier imploded while operating Forty Niner Country Club and two Green Valley golf courses, withdrew. Hundreds of angry members, many of whom had paid for “lifetime memberships,” were left with nothing. The club’s most high-profile tenants, the UA men’s and women’s golf teams, abandoned both facilities.
Finally, at a 2014 foreclosure sale, a Canadian mortgage firm, Romspen, bought Vistoso and Arizona National for pennies on the dollar. Those grand golf courses would get a second chance.
Romspen immediately spent $50,000 to landscape overgrown desert vegetation at Arizona National and about $600,000 to acquire new equipment. The greens are again superb (and slick). At Vistoso, 80 new golf carts are on order. Attention to detail has been restored.
It’s like 1995, Part II.
The parking lot at Vistoso is populated by vehicles with license plates from Wisconsin and Iowa. The fairways are lush and green. Its patio area is second to none.
Romspen hired industry management giant OB Sports to operate both courses. It was smart enough to stay local and hire two reputable pros: Dennis Palmer at Arizona National and Rich Elias at Vistoso, two of the ranking names in Tucson golf course management.
Much like former UA golfer Wade Dunagan, hired by OB Sports as general manager of the five Tucson city courses, Palmer, a Salpointe Catholic grad, and Elias, a Tucson High grad, established credibility at Southern Arizona courses that include Starr Pass, the Quarry Pines, the Tubac Golf Resort and Torres Blancas Golf Club.
“The man who built the original Raven at Sabino Springs in 1995, Larry Lippon, came out to Arizona National last month and told me, ‘You’ve got it back very close to the way we originally set it up,’ ” said Palmer. “That told me we’re doing things the right way.”
The golf business, here or anywhere, isn’t the way it was in 1995. The participatory audience has probably shrunk by 25 percent. Neither Vistoso nor Arizona National is in the discount business and doesn’t plan to be. They are upscale courses, and Romspen is spending the money to keep both facilities that way.
If OB Sports is as effective at Vistoso and Arizona National as it has been at the Tucson city courses, the IRI nightmare might soon go away.
“When we took over in November, we didn’t have a computer system, we didn’t even have phones,” said Elias. “People stopped playing here because we only had 40 working golf carts and because the once-high standards of Vistoso were neglected. We’ve come a long way in a few months.”
After years of slippage, Arizona National spent about $75,000 just to get ice machines, refrigerators, air conditioning units and on-course restrooms repaired. At Vistoso, there was no plumbing on the restroom near the No. 14 green.
Now the water flows and you can even buy a golf ball at the Vistoso pro shop.
What remains is for the Golf Club of Vistoso and Arizona National to restore their reputations. That process begins now.
