The home course may change this spring for the boy’s golf team. A plan is in place for the county to buy San Geronimo Golf Course and convert it to open space.

The county plans to buy the well known 157 acre golf course for around $8.7 million. It has been one of the county’s most popular 18 hole courses and a crucial spot for the school’s golf team.

The purchase would mean that the closest golf course would be in McInnis at the McInnis Golf Course which is around 20 minutes away. Golfer Brendan Corr is upset with the closure and feels it will affect the team dramatically.

“Well, for starters, although McInnis has a driving range, the course is very short. I mean it doesn’t even have 18 holes. This means limited practice on the course while we could be getting in a full practice only 15 minutes away. All in all, closing San Geronimo is detrimental to our team,” Corr said.

Junior Christopher Seymour is also upset with the plan to sell and isn’t sure where he’ll go to practice.

“I think that it’s sad that San Geronimo is closing. It was the first course I ever played on and I still continue to golf there with friends and family. It is the golf team’s home course so right now we aren’t sure what we are going to do and that’s a scary thought as a member of that team,” Seymour said.

Coach Andre Demian is just as concerned but feels fortunate the girls will get to finish their season on the course.

“The loss of San Geronimo will impact the golf program greatly. The loss of the course will impact our match schedule, requiring us to use a new home venue, likely peacock gap. Given the challenge of traffic and travel time, our practice time will be need to be adjusted as well. Given the additional MCAL and university teams using peacock we are concerned about adequate access and at a reasonable time availability- wise,” Demian said.          

The organization assisting the county with the purchase is the Trust for Public Land. A nonprofit organization in San Francisco, they assist in the purchase and creation of public parks and protected lands.      

The Trust will split the cost of the land with the county and hopes that they will be able to raise the rest. According to the Marin IJ, they usually raise the money first but the owner of the land is looking to sell it fast so they will buy it with borrowed money. They want to get to the land before another private owner does.

The county officially signed off on the purchase of the golf course and the exchange should actually occur by the end of December. There are a couple endangered animals on the grounds that the county and trust want to protect so they were ecstatic with the decision.          

The central coast Coho and the steel head salmon environments are both threatened by the golf course. With the purchase of the land, the trust hopes to continue their efforts to restore the environment without having to deal with the concerns and regulations of the golf course.