The city celebrated the opening of the new Golf Shop with a ribbon cutting on Friday.
The shop has been renovated and spruced up with a fresh coat of paint, new carpeting and a fleet of new carts. It’s the first golf course in San Diego County to offer EZ Go Golf Carts. The cars feature lithium ion batteries and a GPS tracking system that keeps golfers from taking them off the course.
“You won’t see Municipal Golf Carts around town anymore,” City Manager Blair King noted.
The ribbon cutting was not only an opportunity to show off the new Golf Shop, but a chance for the community to celebrate new Head Pro Brian Smock.
“This has been great,” Smock told the guests at the ceremony. “A lot of thought and hard work went into this.”
He thanked the City of Coronado for its “confidence in him, and the people in the community for their help and advice.” He singled out his predecessor Ron Yarbrough for his help.
“One of the things [Ron said] that will stick with me was the importance of developing relationships with people at the golf course,” Smock said. “Ron did a great job of that during his tenure here and it’s something that I want to continue.”
Yarbrough retired last week after 20 years. Smock took over as the Head Pro on February 1.
Smock, whose professional career spans 18 years, has played on the PGA Tour, holds nine course records (seven in San Diego) and his career high ranking was 251.
The Coronado native played his first round of golf at the city’s course when he was just 12 years old. He graduated from Coronado High School in 1991 and he and his family live here. “We like to hire people who have ties to the community,” King said.
Smock was far and away the town’s favorite to take over after Yarbrough. “In all my years on the city council I never received so many letters in support of a candidate,” Councilwoman Carrie Downey said. She and Councilman Mike Donovan took part in the ribbon cutting.
Wide local support was not the reason he was hired, King said. It was Smock’s hole-in-one proposal “that put him ahead of the leader board [pun intended].”
While he may have been the hometown hero, “he won fair and square by having the best product,” King said.
The city selected Smock to operate the pro shop and run the golf program as a concessionaire. The City of Coronado owns the course, but it hires concessionaires to operate the club and the restaurant. It’s one of many private-public ownerships in the city.
