I remember when The Greens opened up in Valencia almost ten years ago; it was the place to go to enjoy some drinks, decent food, and an excellent 27-hole putting green with beautiful water features, terraced landscape, and a great atmosphere.
No longer!
I haven’t been to the Valencia Blvd/McBean attraction in a few years, so when I visited there Saturday night, I was shocked to see how much the property has fallen into disrepair.
I’ll try to avoid hyperbole and exaggeration, but what I saw made me a bit concerned for my and my family’s health. Among other things:
- Stagnant, dirty water in some parts, an obvious breeding ground for mosquitoes in a place (LA County) where the West Nile virus has claimed lives
- Dozens and dozens of rabbits prancing around the grounds, defecating, eating, and reproducing. Cute at first, disgusting after ten minutes, making me wish I could somehow conjure up a pack of coyotes to take care of business. Can scores of rabbits be considered a vermin infestation?
- Broken beer bottle shards on the putting green. Beer cans, bottles, chairs, trash, and other litter scattered around the grounds
- I’m no entomologist, but I think there were some exotic bugs feasting on me for much of the nightImage not recoveredphoto.jpg
Along with those potential healthy and safety issues, the “greens” themselves are, on many holes, no longer such. Patches of dirt, rabbit poop, holes in the ground, and dead grass mar many of the holes, making the putting greens into roughs. After the first two holes, it was silly to even keep score; half the time your ball would stop in a patch of dirt, the other half it likely wouldn’t roll as you would expect it to. Many of the holes lacked marker flags, so it was tough to guess the location of the hole.
The Greens can’t in good conscience charge the rates they used to charge for putting, so they’ve lowered the rate to $5 even for as many holes as you like. Though I only parted ways with $15, I felt I got ripped off.
The staff is friendly and helpful, if a bit dishonest about the state of the Greens, telling my party that the field was simply “under construction.” I saw no orange pylons or construction signs testifying to that!
Other customers on the golf course were equally disgusted with the state of the course; one woman left after playing only two holes, telling me that the rabbits “grossed” her out and remarking that the new owners had let the place go to hell.
Even so, by around 9pm, when we were on our way out, the Greens filled up with at least two dozen golfers. The bar and restaurant were filled with young people, so the business is still kicking.
The comment about “new ownership” brings up an important question. In 2006, the Daily News reported that the owner of the Greens had “presented initial plans for a 75,000 square foot office building …. or a luxury hotel.”
When that news broke, I was a bit sad that the community might lose such a cool spot; now I think it’s time they tore it down and built something new. If they don’t care to keep the property up, I won’t care to visit it, and I don’t think you should either.