Your Survival Guide to the USGA's 2012 U.S. Open at SF's Olympic Club

NOTICE: Taking BART to the U.S. Open on Thursday?  READ THIS.

Another big golf event means raking in the tax dollars for the city, but also means headaches for us locals just trying to go on our merry way.

So here's my survival guide to you, the average citizen who doesn't care about golf.

The USGA's 2012 U.S. Open will be held at the Olympic Club, located in the very deep southwest corner of San Francisco and straddles between the borders of San Francisco and Daly City.

The location of the course is surrounded by four major streets/roads: John Muir Drive (North), John Daly Boulevard (South), Lake Merced Boulevard (East), and Skyline Boulevard/Highway 35 (West).  While the Olympic Club is closed to the public as it is a private club for the wealthy, the U.S. Open will make it open to the public with the purchase of a ticket.

The tournament is scheduled to go from Monday, June 11th to Sunday, June 17th with practice rounds on the first few days, and the rest as the tournament.  Crowds and major media attention is likely going to peak during the last final days, especially during the weekend.

Traffic Problems
From what is currently known from the U.S. Open, an article from SFGate, and SFMTA/Muni's websites, there are some key road closures that will definitely put a dent in your commute.

Skyline Boulevard (Highway 35) in the northbound direction will be closed from John Daly Boulevard to John Muir Drive from approximately 5AM to 10PM during every operating day of the U.S. Open.  The southbound direction will have one lane closed between the two streets, but the other lane will remain open.

John Muir Drive, which borders the northern end of the golf course, is closed to traffic.  It is scheduled to close starting at 6AM on Sunday, June 10th and will remain closed until 6AM on June 18th (as per SFgate).  However, contradictory to what the Chronicle is saying, the 18-46th Avenue bus line will still be able to go eastbound on John Muir (as per SFMTA), but is unable to go westbound.

There is also the likely possibility of a traffic jam on the east side of the golf course along Lake Merced Boulevard.  Between John Muir Drive and John Daly Boulevard is the community park and will be the staging area for all taxis and limos as drop-off and pick-up points.

Better alternate routes:

Take 280 and 19th Avenue:

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Take Sunset Boulevard which changes to Lake Merced Boulevard, Brotherhood Way, and 280.  UPDATE: This is not a great route, southbound Lake Merced Boulevard can get jammed by heavy traffic all the way from Font, but once you make the turn to Brotherhood, traffic flows fast.  An alternative is to make a left turn onto Winston towards Stonestown and turn right onto 19th Avenue.

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Parking Problems
As there will be incompetent people on the road looking for a sweet parking space to go watch golfers stroke their [three] wood and wash their [golf] balls, expect major parking problems in the surrounding areas.

As always, there will be those golf spectator idiots who thinks parking in a private parking lot such as Burger King's or the Westlake Shopping Center is a great idea.  I'll tell you, it's not, and expect a nice tow truck to haul the car away.  They probably have extra security watching over the lots.

Here's a list of areas where parking might get hard, and these are areas where it's "close" to the entrance on John Muir Drive.  BUT in reality, parking in one of these areas means one hell of a long walk.

• South end of the golf course, such as near Joe's of Westlake (they do make a great Steak a la Bruno).
• Lake Merced from Winston to Font.
• SF State and Parkmerced area (most parking is limited to one hour).
• Merrie Way (Janet Pomoroy Center).

One way to definitely piss-off a lot of people is to park in the SF State garage.  If you have no university related business, stay the hell out.  You seriously don't want to mess with students, faculty, and staff; the lot is for them so they can go to or teach class, or do their jobs as university officials.

UPDATE: Golf spectators with a special permit to park in the SF State garage is permitted to do so.  If you don't have one of those permits, you'll be turned away.  SF State students, staff, and faculty should be prepared to show their campus ID, employee parking permit, or have a legitimate reason to park on-campus.

Public Transit Problems:
There's only two bus lines that runs close to the action: Muni's 18-46th Avenue and Samtrans 122.

Samtrans may encounter traffic, but Muni will feel the pain.  All 18 line service going from Legion of Honor to Stonestown will operate normally.  All 18 line service going from Stonestown to Legion of Honor will have to be re-routed.  See maps below.

This is the normal route the 18-46th Avenue line takes to go from Stonestown to Legion of Honor (via westbound John Muir):

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This is the detour the bus must take due to the westbound John Muir closure:

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If you are trying to get to the event...
The parking lot is at Candlestick Park.  You think I'm kidding?  No.  There will be luxury shuttle buses transporting people to and from the stadium's lot to the golf course.

For those of you riding BART, take the train to Colma station (NOT DALY CITY) and board a shuttle to the golf course.  Please remember, parking in Colma station to ride the shuttle is a violation of BART parking policy and will be cited and/or towed; it is only for BART passengers.  Park at a different BART station, pay the parking fee (if applicable), and take the train to Colma.  Go to BART's website and get information about parking and how to get a reserved parking space permit.

For more information, please visit:
USGA Spectator Guide (Transportation Info)
SFMTA/Muni 18-46th Avenue affected routes
SFgate article on U.S. Open

A Local's Survival Guide to PGA Charles Schwab Golf Tournament at SF's Harding Park

The PGA Champions Tour is returning to San Francisco at Lake Merced's Harding Park golf course. I've read over the material and found out this event won't be as bad as other times where streets have been closed-off, certain areas turned into defacto parking lots for the rich and wealthy, and Muni lines were seriously re-routed. With much less traffic and transit restrictions, it looks like this might be a much lower profile event than the other two that snarled the area and made a lot of SF State students, faculty, and staff upset; one huge reason, a one day ticket is only $25, while the last two events charged at least double or triple.

Here's an easy guide to a smooth experience during this golf tourney (whether you are a local trying to get around or just wanting to see golfers wash their balls):

Event dates:

• Held from Monday, November 1st, to Sunday, November 7th.
• Monday and Tuesday is not for the general public.
• Wednesday through Sunday is for the general public to access. Practice round is Wednesday, and tournament play is the remaining days.

Traffic Closures:

• The SFMTA's ISCOTT meeting agenda states in item "R," Herbst road that services the Janet Pomeroy center, National Guard, and the delivery entrance for the SF Zoo will be closed from 6:30AM to 5:30PM each day.
• This is the only noted road closure from the ISCOTT notes, thereby any other closures could be deemed illegal because only ISCOTT can approve city road closures (that is, unless there's an emergency).

Transit Changes:

• Muni's 18-46th Avenue line going to Stonestown will not provide service along Herbst road. Instead, it will continue straight down Skyline and pick-up/drop-off passengers on Skyline after Herbst. Service going towards Legion of Honor will not be altered.
• Original route map:
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• Temporary reroute (stop is at "B"):
  View Larger Map
• This is a vast improvement over the last event where the 18-46th Avenue going towards Legion of Honor slashed service by not providing service to the eastern, southern, and west areas of Lake Merced (the actual lake, not boulevard) due to road closures. It disenfranchised access for residents living on John Muir Drive and the Parkmerced residence community, the disabled at Janet Pomeroy, and SF State students.

Parking:

• Sanctioned parking lots are located at the Stonestown Mall from Wednesday to Sunday, and SF State from Saturday to Sunday (see map).
  
• Parking in the street might get tricky, especially with the heavy restrictions and time limits in the SF State area.
• Don't park in the SF State garage until the weekend. Campus cops are watching, and you don't want to mess with thousands of students, staff, and faculty who uses the lot on a daily basis.
• Do not park in Daly City BART to take advantage of the free shuttle. The BART lot is for passengers only and registering the car in the paid area of the station is REQUIRED. Abusing the system will result in a large fine and/or towing.

Transit options to event:

• BART: Daly City station will have shuttles.
• Muni: 29 Sunset provides service to the main gates near "Sunset Circle" (a.k.a. where Lake Merced Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. meets). L-Taraval is a walk to the main gates from the terminus stop at the Zoo. 18-46th Avenue passengers should exit at Sloat and Skyline and walk to main gates. 23-Monterey passengers should exit at Sunset Blvd and walk.
• Bike: Free bike racks at "Sunset Circle" main gates.
• Taxi: Drop-off on Lake Merced between Sunset and Skyline.
• See complete map.

Here's some local resident tips if you are just trying to avoid this train wreck:

• Great Highway between Sloat and Skyline is now fully opened in both directions. This will ease the traffic that will happen due to the golf tourney along Skyline.
• If you are commuting along the 18-46th Avenue and 29-Sunset, expect some delays due to traffic.
• If you work for the SF Zoo or need access to the Janet Pomeroy center, hopefully they informed you about the road closure.
• You might want to avoid the Sunset Circle area and the adjacent roads.
• If you work or go to SF State, arrive a little earlier. If you depend on street parking, you should definitely get to campus much earlier if those golf spectator cheapskates steal all the parking.

Let's hope for a smooth golf tournament and minimal road or transit hassles.

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.