March 27 was a celebratory day for affordable, accessible, community centric golf in the San Gabriel Valley. The 6,200-yard regulation daily fee golf course that served generations of golfers and offered some of the best in junior and developmental programming in the region reopened as a 9-hole regulation course four years after COVID forced its closure.
The new course will be familiar to those who played the old one. The new 9 is made up of old holes 10 through 17 along with the old 9th hole. The driving range/practice facility has been restored along with a small section of the old clubhouse that offers starting services, golf merchandise, and prepared food options. Touchstone Golf, which manages a portfolio of 40 plus golf courses, 27 of them in California, many of them municipal, has been brought aboard to manage the facility.
As stated in their application before the City of Azusa, the new ownership “expects to partner with organizations serving youth golf, underserved communities, veterans and others, providing access to the course and practice facilities to serve those communities.” Expect PGA golf professional Jerry Herrera’s San Gabriel Junior Golf Foundation that worked for years with Ramon and Lizette Salas to provide absurdly low-cost junior programming at Azusa Greens to be back on site.
All this is Phase I of a two-phase project. Course ownership is in the process of entitling Phase II with additions and enhancements to the clubhouse area and construction of age-restricted housing where much of the course’s old front 9 was located – an example of how a city, developer, and golf community can work together to balance equities for the common good of a community.