Source: Press Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.)
The Palm Meadows Golf Course was sold for scrap on Saturday, two days after the last round was played among the towering palms of the former Norton Air Force Base.
"If they're going to tear down these beautiful trees," said Frank Kolodziej, a Calimesa resident who played the course for two decades, "I would like to get one and maybe a golf cart."
Kolodziej, 59, stood next to a palm tagged with an auction number. Hundreds of people bought golf carts, kitchen tables and lawn equipment auctioned off via rapid-fire syllables.
The 60-acre course was built in 1950. Norton was closed in the early 1990s in the early rounds of the Pentagon's base closure process.
The area belongs to the Inland Valley Development Agency, which governs its re-use. The golf course is zoned for commercial and industrial uses.
Martin Romeo, the agency's chief financial officer, said Saturday afternoon that $ 150,000 in sales had exceeded his "wildest dreams."
When the auction began that morning, Romeo said he would have been happy to clear $ 60,000 - the amount needed to buy the 75 golf carts they had been leasing. He said the excess money would be returned to the agency.
"I was thinking maybe $100,000," Romeo said. "And we haven't even got to the trees and sod."
Diane Bendis, owner of the Bendis company that ran the sale, said she has never auctioned a golf course. She said the company accommodated buyers by projecting property pictures onto a screen.
"People aren't going to walk out to the 18th tee," she said. "So you have to do a picture show."
Troy Burton was the golf pro and manager at Palm Meadows for eight years. He said buyers included golf courses wanting sod, restaurant mangers wanting kitchen equipment and farmers wanting tractors.
"I miss the people," Burton said. "The fixtures can all be replaced."