This article originally appeared in the August issue of NCGA Golf Magazine
By Nick Lozito
There was fair warning about the 18th hole at The Golf Club at Rio Vista. But when you see a 330-yard par 4 on the scorecard, it’s hard not to get a bit greedy – especially in a four-player scramble.
Then you get to the tee box. “Where’s the flag?” I ask David Glass, who points out the red cloth slapping in the delta breeze, poking above a mound left of the fairway. “This is the Candlestick Park of Northern California golf,” the former San Francisco Giants radio broadcaster jokes.
Only the wind occasionally blew out at Candlestick. The wind on the dogleg-left 18th at Rio Vista is almost always into your face, so any fade or slice leaves you with a long-iron approach, into the wind--with a pond to cover. I poked a low burner down the left side of the fairway, leaving the group with about 130 yards in. Unfortunately, that mound has made for a blind approach, and when you can’t see the flag or feel the full force of the wind above, you tend to overswing.
Kerplunk went my 7-iron into the pond.
Glass walked me through the signature 18th hours ago, as we sat in the clubhouse with coffee discussing how the Homeowners Association, of which Glass is vice president, purchased the dilapidated course and partnered with CourseCo golf management on a restoration project.
“Just so you know, Ron shot 71 yesterday,” Glass informed me of Ron Chalmers, who at 80 routinely bests his age. “I have my moments,” the muti-time club champion humbly replies. On the 18th, Chalmers keeps a flighted mid-iron below the gusts to about 20 feet, and we capitalize with a closing birdie on what these men hope will again become a destination public golf course.
“You’ve forgotten all about us,” Glass said of the Ted Robinson Jr. design uniquely positioned on the Sacramento River between the Capital Region and Bay Area, which attracted golfers across Northern California upon its 1996 opening.
When the Homeowners Association voted to purchase The Golf Club at Rio Vista out of bankruptcy in 2019, the course was unrecognizable. The greens were torn apart by geese; “toolies,” those tall plants in swampy areas unique to the Sacramento Delta, blocked views of holes and ate up golf balls; and wetlands had formed in areas with poor drainage.
The toolies are gone, bunkers restored and greens run true. While the renovation isn’t complete – “it’s a journey,” Glass explains – the Homeowners Association and CourseCo hope golfers put the Sacramento River Delta course back on their radar. “It’s a sense of pride we talk about all the time,” Glass said.
Green fees are $52 on weekdays and $57 on the weekends, with $15 rates for golfers 17-and-younger. There is no practice range, so give grace for a breakfast ball or two.
“We’re really on the way to restoring it to the great golf course it was,” said Lee Finkel, the vice president of finance for CourseCo. “We love doing the work. We’re happy that we can be a part of this, but there is no doubt that none of this happens unless the community was committed to keeping this asset and bringing it back to what it was originally.”