What needs to be fixed: 2009 PGA President's Cup at Harding Park

On October 6-11, 2009: the PGA will host the President's Cup at the Harding Golf Course located at Lake Merced in San Francisco.

The last major PGA event turned out to be a real hassle, and I hope the city learns some lessons to save us the pain in the back that many of my fellow colleagues at SF State University, who works and lives next door to the event experienced.

Let me recap the problems from the last PGA event at Harding Park:

1. Sunset Blvd. became a parking lot, where two lanes on each direction was used to park on the entire length of the road (Sloat to Judah). This caused a massive delay for Muni's 29-Sunset, which is already notorious for being slow... well, one of my friends recalled that during the first day, she waited 90 minutes for a bus to get her to college.
2. The PGA failed to advertise in the SF State University's "Golden Gate [X]Press about how the PGA event will affect the entire campus as there are over 25,000 full-time students everyday.
3. The City of San Francisco had lacking information of road closures, and procedures when traffic gets worse.
4. The City of San Francisco wasted money repaving John Muir Drive when it really did not need it.
5. Local radio personalities questioned the purpose of having rocks lined all around Lake Merced. While the intention was to prevent people from parking their cars on the pathways, it's unintentional consequence the radio folks said is that some punks could roll one of those rocks into the street and cause a serious accident. It never did happen, but there's still that possibility when the roads surrounding the lake varies from 35MPH to 45MPH.
6. Citizens questioned the need to "beautify" the surrounding of the lake, then realized the money they spent could have kept the public restrooms in the city parks clean and open for the public.

Here are things the city can do to fix the problems:

1. Advertise in the neighborhood newspapers, including the Golden Gate [X]Press.
2. Don't make Sunset Blvd. a parking lot. That's a major thoroughfare for the Richmond and Sunset district residents. If you do it on Great Highway, that's even worse.
   
3. The city should spend their money wisely to patch-up the grass and keep it ready for a major event.
4. If parking lots will be used, it should come with a heavy tax to discourage parking, and to take the damn bus for crying out loud.
5. Muni should provide more vehicles, at the PGA's expense.
   
6. Encourage spectators to stay out of the SFSU parking lot. Once you tick-off the student, faculty, and staff population, don't expect some happy words from the management.

Now, go play some damn golf! I'll be yelling out "Tiger sucks!" and blowing an airhorn outside the fence.