Things are looking up for long-neglected Shandin Hills Golf Club in San Bernardino

Posted by author November 4, 2024 Golf

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The putting green at Shandin Hills Golf Club is scarred with weeds and brown patches, the decrepit clubhouse is yellow-tagged and the golfers are angry.

As it turns out, those are probably good things for critics of the city-owned course in San Bernardino and the management companies that have been operating it. That’s because conditions are so bad that the city has pushed the 100-acre public golf course high up the priority list for badly needed capital repairs.

“I am aware that the golf course does need some attention. We’re working on the city side to assess where the capital improvements need to happen and start toward how we’re going to make those investments,” said Ken Chapa, the city’s economic development director. “We want that golf course to be successful. We want it to be the pride of our community.”

They have their work cut out for them.

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A golfer tees off on the driving range at Shandin Hills Golf Club in San Bernardino on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. The golf course, which has been under new management for the past year, is trying to perform upgrades on the city-owned facility. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

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The 18,500-square-foot clubhouse was yellow-tagged by the city, limiting its use, because it is in a major state of disrepair. A buckling awning over the golf shop entrance is supported by splintered wood beams, and there are holes in the floor and ceiling inside the main clubhouse. Outside, paint is chipping on the eaves.

The browning grass and weeds on the putting green started becoming a problem over the scorching summer, said Mike Winn, a Lake Arrowhead resident and owner and operator of Local Golf Management, LLC, which took over management of Shandin Hills on June 1, 2023, under a five-year contract with the city.

“It was really bad a few weeks ago,” said Winn, noting that temperatures topping 115 degrees, coupled with humidity, burned and damaged the turf at the golf course.

“Anytime you get humidity and heat, the turf starts to die,” said Winn, whose wife, Fariel Winn, is the general manager of the golf club. The couple also own and operate the Arrowhead Country Club in San Bernardino, which they bought in August 2021.

Mike Winn said the golf course greens at the 40-year-old club were recently seeded with bentgrass and ryegrass, which can withstand intense summer heat and extreme winter cold.

“By Thanksgiving, the greens here will be beautiful,” he said.

Chorus of critics

Deteriorating conditions at Shandin Hills have resulted in a spate of customer complaints in recent months.

One of the most outspoken critics of the course and its management has been Travis Lett, a patron for about 20 years until Oct. 14. On that day, Lett lashed out at Mike Winn in passing in an outburst witnessed by more than a dozen people at the golf course. The police were called, and Lett was escorted off the premises and permanently banned from the club.

Lett acknowledges his encounter with Winn, as well as an earlier confrontation with a former general manager inside the golf shop that was recorded on video.

Mike Winn said he plans to get a restraining order against Lett.

Other Shadlin Hills critics have shared similar concerns about the condition of the golf club’s greens and increased golfing fees Some patrons have given the club one- and two-star ratings on Yelp in the past few months.

“Poor conditions and still charging full price. Most of the greens on the course extremely bad. You can’t putt,” said a Sept. 2 review by a Diamond Bar resident who posted a video and photos of the golf course turf.

In a Sept. 24 review, a Rancho Cucamonga resident said: “It pains me to say this and I should have taken pictures, but I had really enjoyed playing at this golf course and after playing on Monday, September 23, this management should be ashamed of itself for purposely not telling golfers like myself the horrid conditions of their greens.” He called them “disastrous.”

Some customers, however, gave the golf course four-star ratings, touting its affordable pricing, proximity to the freeway and family-friendly atmosphere.

The Winns said they increased the former flat rate fee of $30 to $44 on weekdays and $54 on on weekends.

‘High priority’

Chapa, the city’s economic development director, said addressing the problems at Shandin Hills became one of his top priorities when he was hired in mid-July, and that he has a personal interest in the project because he learned to play golf on a public course while growing up in southern Arizona.

Municipal golf courses, once common, are disappearing across the American landscape due to high operating costs and the financial strain they put on cities. But Chapa said the city considers Shandin Hills a valuable asset to the community, which is why it has been moved up the city’s priority list for capital improvements.

The city specifically plans to assess what it will cost to repair the run-down clubhouse.

“It is a high priority for our city to make sure we maintain an amenity of that type that is affordable and going to be a joy for everybody,” Chapa said.

From June 1, 2023, through September this year, the city paid Local Golf Management $235,000 to run the golf course, which generated $2.5 million in gross revenue. However, the net profit earned by the city, after operating costs and overhead expenses were deducted, was only $142,830. The city plans to reinvest that back into the golf course, city spokesperson Jeff Kraus said.

As allowed under its management agreement with Local Golf Management, the city on Oct. 22 commissioned a forensic audit of the company’s financial records, which the Winns welcome.

“The city has every right to audit their property,” said Mike Winn, to which wife Fariel added: “We welcome the audit. We welcome everything.”

Problems inherited

Though the Winns assure the greens are soon to be green and robust again, Fariel Winn said there is only so much she and her husband can do to improve the property. She said they inherited most of the problems at the golf club, which she believes has been neglected by the city and its prior managers for the past two decades.

“I went to everybody. I went to planning, I went to the city manager,” Fariel Winn said. “I said, ‘You have a property and you have never been here for 20 years. You’ve fixed absolutely nothing!’ “

While the snack bar, pro shop and starter area at the clubhouse remain open, the second floor of the clubhouse that houses the banquet room, meeting room and kitchen remains closed to customers, Kraus said.

Fariel Winn said it was actually her push that got the city to send out a team that yellow-tagged the clubhouse last month. “I did that because there’s no way I could have had people come in here and risk getting hurt,” she said.

Previous operator

She said the company that managed the golf course for nearly a decade, Dallas-based Arcis Golf, neglected the clubhouse, charged fees that were too low, gave away free food and allowed some members to play golf for free.

“Arcis did nothing,” Fariel Winn said. “They made no money for the city.”

Clifford Corigliano, a Shandin Hills member of 29 years and board member and secretary of its 180-member Men’s Club, said the club never gave away free food, but would charge an additional $5 on top of the $30 golf fee for a sandwich for breakfast or lunch. Now the price of food is so high people aren’t buying it, he said.

Fariel Winn stands by her assertions that food and fountain drinks were given away for free under Arcis’s management.

Arcis Golf, which was doing business as CF Shandin Hills Arcis LLC when it managed Shandin Hills, said in a statement it terminated its existing lease agreement with the city in June 2020, as the COVID pandemic was taking hold and golf courses and other public facilities countywide were shuttered.

At that time and at the request of the city, Arcis agreed to manage the golf course property for one year, with all capital investments in the property the responsibility of the city. At the request of the city, Arcis agreed to multiple extensions until the city acquired a long-term operational partner.

Enter the Winns.

City pleased with management

Corigliano, a retired San Bernardino High School teacher of 35 years, said he and the board of directors have requested a meeting with the Winns twice since they began managing the golf course, but the board has yet to meet with them.

“We’ve asked to see them, and they say, ‘We’ll let you know,’ ” Corigliano said. “It’s fallen on deaf ears.”

Fariel Winn said the golf course was not turning a profit, and she and her husband have been busy trying to reverse that trajectory.

“We were told to fix Shandin Hills, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re doing what we need to do,” she said, adding that on top of trying to make the golf course profitable, she and her husband have had to contend with recurring break-ins and burglaries, most of them attributed to homeless people.

In addition to increased fees to help generate more revenue and the soon-to-be improved greens, the Winns said they plan to make the golf course more upper-scale by implementing a mandatory dress code that will require all patrons to wear collared shirts. The new dress code will take effect on Jan. 1.

Chapa said the city has been pleased with how the Winns have been managing the golf course, and are only managing what they were given to manage. He said he could not address why conditions at Shandin Hills got to be the way they are.

“I can’t speak to what happened all those years ago,” he said, “but I can tell you this: It’s a priority for us.”

Originally Published: November 4, 2024 at 2:54 PM PST