Golf

El Rio course finally will get overdue face-lift

Tucson's most historic athletic venue, El Rio Golf Course, will shut down tonight to be nipped, tucked, stretched, lifted and given some new plumbing. It will be our sports version of "Extreme Makeover." At 70, it could use a few days in the shop. Ordinarily, the six-month closure of a Southern Arizona golf course does not merit much commentary. We've got 47 other golf facilities in the valley; you won't have difficulty finding a tee time elsewhere. But as the granddad of all Tucson sports turf, El Rio merits special care and handling. Two of the most influential Tucsonans of the 20th century, Roy Drachman and Hi Corbett, were the centerpiece members at El Rio. It was a happenin' place, with a swimming pool, a caddyshack, a meet-and-be-seen clubhouse, and a future Hall of Fame pro, Leo Diegel. Everybody who was somebody played there. Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player. The last time the Tucson Open was played at El Rio, in 1962, the field included two of Tucson's greatest, Bob Gaona and Phil Ferranti. On Friday, a day El Rio was booked from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with only one available tee time, Gaona and Ferranti played the old course again, together, their last look at the original grounds. The Gaona vs. Ferranti pairing probably is the most enduring sports rivalry in this city. Two weeks ago, they met in a playoff for the senior championship of the Southwest Section of the PGA. Ferranti won. "I'll bet you that Bobby Gaona has played more rounds of golf at El Rio than anyone in history," said Ferranti. "He's an institution here." A former El Rio caddie, and a 1990s member of the Senior PGA Tour, Gaona should be honored when El Rio reopens in the winter. In the El Rio parking lot, there is a marble memorial to Camilo Carreon, a former major-league catcher who later was part of the grounds crew at El Rio. Sometime soon, Gaona should be honored with a memorial inside the gates. As Gaona has changed, so has El Rio. The swimming pool is gone. Caddies are out. Diegel has been dead for 50 years, and the clubhouse is so quiet you can hear the news commentary on an old television set in the corner. The men's locker facility is so rank that you can only guess what has died in there: bats or rats - or some old cat. It has been sad to see something once so grand and full of life fall into such disrepair. The word on the golf street is that nobody but the high-handicap hacker plays at El Rio anymore, because it's on the wrong side of the freeway. As Tucson sprawled north and east, El Rio lost its members. The country club folded, and in the mid-1960s, it became a Tucson City Golf property. It lost its esteem but not its personality. Tucson golf architect Ken Kavanaugh, whose 1996 redesign at Dell Urich Golf Course was a work of art, will touch up El Rio. He'll leave the signature pea-sized greens intact. In fact, he'll shave down the larger greens at Nos. 3, 4 and 11. Your greens-in-regulation percentages will plummet. There's nothing Kavanaugh can do to shut up the chronically crowing rooster near the No. 3 tee box, one that inevitably spasms into a cock-a-doodle-do in the middle of your backswing. He promises not to chop down any of the grand, ancient tamarack trees that house an active population of owls and hawks, swooping daily in a hunt for food from fairway to fairway, the sight of which is worth a $22 greens fee. About the only thing Kavanaugh will eliminate at El Rio are thousands of burrowing animal holes, a good place for a rat to evade an owl. But alas, it's a broken ankle waiting to happen for someone shouldering a golf bag. Thanks to the largess of the Tucson Conquistadores and the PGA Tour's First Tee program, El Rio will reopen with modern irrigation, a contemporary driving range, a much-needed short-game practice facility and a kids-friendly set of tees and special par-3 course. By Thanksgiving, El Rio will not be Tucson National or The Gallery, but it again will be a showpiece on the city's West Side. Don't tell anybody. If we keep it a secret, we'll still have the best tee times on the challenging old course to ourselves.