---
title: How a Non-Golfer Helped Save Palm Springs Golf
description: With Tahquitz GC under threat of being converted into a nature preserve, Ernest Ceceña founded Save PS Golf to fight for the course.
---

[SCGA News ](https://news.scga.org)

# [How a Non-Golfer Helped Save Palm Springs Golf](https://news.scga.org/how-a-non-golfer-helped-save-palm-springs-golf)

 Written by [Judd Spicer](https://news.scga.org/author/judd-spicer) | Sep 12, 2024 7:49:40 PM

*By Judd Spicer*

Golf may not be on the ballot this November, but a desert golf course savior undoubtedly is.

Back in 2021, Ernest Ceceña was new to the Tahquitz Creek neighborhood in Palm Springs, a community abutting 36-holes of the popular, city-owned golf property eponymous. That Ceceña wasn’t a golfer mattered not to a man motivated by community activism.

With Tahquitz under threat of being sold to a land trust and the courses being converted into a nature preserve, Ceceña founded “Save PS Golf.” Via the efforts to protect one of the desert’s most accessible and affordable public play options, Ceceña discovered his talents for creating a cohesive voice amid growing public opposition to a possible sale.

“I watched my neighbors and the chaos the rumors were causing for them; people were really upset, they wanted to act, but everybody wasn’t quite on the same page,” recalls Ceceña, who serves as chairman of the Tahquitz neighborhood organization. “With Save PS Golf, I took it upon myself to get this thing organized and really focus on our goal.”

Teeing-up such focus resulted in Ceceña leading the charge on a cache of communal advocacy efforts; “Save PS Golf” signage was posted in myriad homeowner yards around the golf grounds while Ceceña managed a steering committee with weekly meetings; additionally, he created an online petition (ultimately receiving well over 3,000 signatures), coordinated a letter-writing campaign, worked with city staff and presented findings to the Palm Springs City Council.

The efforts proved so effective as to see the land trust lessen its aims toward acquiring one of the Tahquitz courses, before eventually turning its attentions elsewhere.

“We do consider it a win,” Ceceña says.

A taste for victory paved way for a menu of community efforts in recent years, as Ceceña has since worked on issues ranging from homelessness to noise pollution to neighborhood crime.

Today, Ceceña has furthered his communal scorecard with a run for Palm Springs City Council (District 4).

“Yes, it did,” Ceceña says of golf serving as springboard in his current aims for a council seat. “That, and the support from the community; they recognized my role in Save PS Golf and, I’m proud to say, how it affected people in a positive way. It led to people coming to me with other concerns, and then taking on other community issues and trying to make a positive impact.”

A longtime compliance manager in the mortgage business, Ernest Ceceña didn’t have the public sector on his future tee sheet when he moved to Tahquitz. But, for some, even the non-golfers, the game just has a way of finding you.

“It is a surprise, as I’m not a golfer and wasn’t looking to live on a golf course,” he says. “But the way everything has played out, it has just felt right. The direction that life has brought me, something is just telling me that I’m in the right place at the exact right time.”

[View full post](https://news.scga.org/how-a-non-golfer-helped-save-palm-springs-golf)

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