Source: Sacramento Bee
The city has a new golf manager. Much of what that means to Sacramento-area players should be known by the end of February.
Doug Parker started overseeing operations at Haggin Oaks, Bing Maloney, Bartley Cavanaugh and Land Park in October. He has spent the past 31/2 months getting a feel for the city's political climate, its relationship with Morton Golf and studying revenue projections.
"I have some ideas," he said. "But until I get into the bowels of this thing, I'm not exactly sure how we're going to work it."
Pricing is something Parker said he is studying closely. Whether he thinks city courses are charging too much or too little to keep players happy and maximize revenue hasn't been determined, he said. He expects to reach conclusions and propose action within a month.
The bundling of cart fees with green fees at Haggin's Alister MacKenzie course is among the things he's scrutinizing.
"I'm going to see what's happened to the revenue and the rounds since we've gone bundled," he said. "Of course, I'll need the blessing of people a few pay grades above mine (before any changes are made)."
Parker, 62, comes to Sacramento after 40 years of military affiliation, the past 24 in golf-
related capacities. Most recently, he was at Beale Air Force Base near Marysville, where he managed Coyote Run Golf Course and other base-related revenue-producing activities since 1998.
From 1981 to 1996, he worked at now-closed Fort Ord in Seaside as the general manager and head golf pro of the Bayonet and Black Horse courses.
In between, Parker was the golf manager for the Air Force, setting policy and maintenance requirements for courses worldwide.
He was drafted into the Army in 1964, retiring 20 years later as a captain. But his first exposure to military golf came as a teenager years earlier at Mather Air Force Base, where his father helped set up the radar approach.
"I went to work at the new golf course, picking up rocks when they built the back nine," Parker said.
And 45 years later, the Folsom High School graduate is back, still trying to make golf less rocky for area players.
Analyzing fee structures, maintenance standards, ways to generate more revenue and find less expensive equipment are part of his job, but it's players Parker said he's thinking about.
"I'm not a guy who just looks at numbers," he said. "I'm here to make customers happy. If I can do that, I feel I've contributed to the golf community."
Parker, the city's third golf manager, takes the job vacated by Ann Weaver, who resigned in April to take a management position with a private firm in the golf industry in Florida.
Dale Achondo, who retired in 1995 after 29 years at the helm, was the city's first golf manager.
And at the county . . . - Thom Oliver, a Sacramento County employee since 1970 who took over as golf manager when the county formed a golf division in 1998, retires Feb. 4.
Oliver, 58, oversaw courses at Ancil Hoffman, Cherry Island and Mather, which the county began operating in 1995.
As a biology and park management major at Sacramento State, Oliver said he guided nature tours at Hoffman while still a student in 1968. He started working for the leisure services division two years later.
"We tried to improve conditions and leave them in better shape than we found them," he said of his golf legacy.
