San Diego’s new municipal golf tee time system is making money for $55 million golf fund

A San Diego council member suggested at a recent committee meeting that the city look into ways to take revenue from golf division leases to help fund all parks and recreation needs.

The Golf Enterprise Fund provides for the care and maintenance of the city’s three public courses. At the end of last year it held an impressive $55 million.

With a city facing a $120 million budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year, this tempting target is fodder for those tasked with filling the gap. Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera, at a Land Use and Housing Committee meeting last month, asked that city staff study the possibility of shifting more money away from the golf fund to cover other expenses.

In 2025, the gross revenue for San Diego’s municipal courses was $41.4 million, 9.9% of which was paid to the general fund. 

A possible stumbling block, though, could be a 2021 council decision to approve a business plan to ensure the long-term financial stability of the Golf Enterprise Fund.

A 2023 business plan update followed, provided by Caleb Olsen, a city public information officer. It includes this description of the fund:  “The Golf Enterprise Fund protects the City’s General Fund from obligations or costs incurred by the operation of the three municipally owned and operated golf courses. Doing so ensures all revenues from the courses go to their operation and maintenance and that no General Fund subsidies or resources would be needed to support the division. “

The city’s finance office responded to Elo-Rivera, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, saying that the city council has options regarding the fund, ranging from temporarily tapping it to setting it aside altogether, leaving the money available for the general fund. The office also raised the possibility of selling bonds based on funds generated by the city’s courses.

The Union-Tribune also reported that Mayor Todd Gloria, in a statement, said he is “not contemplating” shifting golf enterprise funding to cover general city operations.

An additional, smaller source of cash for the golf fund, a new $10 fee for booking advance reservations at two popular municipal golf courses, has turned out to be a boon not only for local golfers, but also for the city of San Diego.

As of March 15, the city has collected nearly $165,000 from what’s known as the Advanced Reservation Program at the Balboa Park and Mission Bay golf courses. The fee allows golfers with ​city resident cards to book tee times up to 90 days in advance, giving them a better chance at nabbing a choice tee time.

Golfers without the card, though, still are able to book free tee times.  

Olsen, the city spokesman, says almost 90% of the bookings are for the 18-hole course at Balboa. This means, he explained,  “Golfers looking to play the Balboa nine or Mission Bay can still find the tee times they want without paying a booking fee.”  

The fee was created to deal with suspected bots and tee time brokers who had the ability to access tee time reservation systems across municipal courses in Southern California, snatching up the best tee times and then offering them at a higher price on different online platforms. 

Local golfers told Times of San Diego that desirable times would disappear within minutes of becoming available on the city’s tee time reservation website. 

The problem appears to be resolved, according to city employees who work for the Parks and Recreation department’s golfing division. They say they are not hearing from unhappy players anymore about disappearing tee times. The same is true for random golfers interviewed by Times of San Diego.

On Sept. 25 of last year, a Los Angeles federal grand jury indicted two men, identical twin brothers, who worked as magnetic resonance imaging technicians and had launched the ​tee-time scheme at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This was a time, say numerous golfing industry experts, when the sport experienced explosive growth. The brothers, Se Youn Kim and Hee Youn Kim, were not charged for stealing tee times, but for income tax evasion on $1.1 million from an alleged brokerage service scam.  Golfers paid them using Venmo and Zelle accounts. 

The Kim brothers’ trial is scheduled for June 29 in Los Angeles.

Updated 7:05 p.m. April 2, 2026