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Solana Beach, Ca.. - By Nan Sterman – Towering trees rise beneath an unbelievably blue sky, shading golfers and the greens where they hone their skills. More than beautiful, the trees also create a sound barrier that contributes to a sense of peace and privacy that again pervades the golf course. After a six-month renovation, Valencia Country Club once more is a place to escape day-to-day worries and enjoy the game.



Valencia Country Club is a world class golf course with a history that goes back nearly forty years. In 1964, legendary golf course designer Robert Trent Jones, Sr. designed a course for the soon-to-be built town of Valencia, California. Interstate 5 was not yet a neighbor. Travelers and truckers heading north to Bakersfield or south to Los Angeles took four-lane Highway 99.



A century earlier the Newhall family, who owned much of the property in the area, had incorporated their 143,000 acres of farm and ranchland under the name the Newhall Land and Farming Company. In her book A California legend: The Newhall Land and Farming Company, Ruth Waldo Newhall describes what was known in the 1960s as the Newhall-Saugus area as “a remote, generally barren territory with a few small Western-desert-type settlements that were little more than turnouts on the highway.”

As the 60s progressed, urbanization pushed its way outward from the center of Los Angeles. The baby boom was winding down but newcomers continued to stream in from all corners of the country. From their vantage point thirty miles north of downtown LA, the Newhall family realized it was time to trade overalls and boots for business suits. So they turned to renowned urban planner Victor Gruen to design a master-planned community that today is home to 45,000 people. Gruen designed Valencia, named for the oranges the Newhalls grew. The design considered every aspect of the new city including schools, shopping areas, recreation, a hospital, even a community college.

Ruth Newhall writes that 1964 was the year that state bought the right-of-way through the family company’s property to extend Interstate 5 northward. It was then decided that a golf course along the new thoroughfare would be “a highly visible signpost for the new City of Valencia, the first step in changing the image of the (Santa Clarita) valley.”

The valley’s image certainly did change. Valencia grew, as did the surrounding communities of Saugus, Canyon Country, and Newhall. For many years, the Jones-designed golf course served the public. In the 1980s, the course passed into private hands and became a private membership club known as the Valencia Country Club. In 2002, the Heritage Golf Group of San Diego purchased the course. “It is a fabulous property,” says Norm Goodmanson, Vice President for Development for Heritage Golf Group. “Literally, it is one of the best golf courses in California if not the country.”

With the new purchase, the Heritage Golf Group took an inventory. The course itself, with its Jones signature undulating greens and large bunkers, had easily stood the test of time. But the 50,000 square-foot clubhouse needed attention. In addition, the golf course’s atmosphere suffered from its exposure to a now bustling region of 200,000 people and a traffic-laden interstate.

Heritage Golf Group brought in Robert Hertzing as golf course superintendent and charged him with renovating the grounds. Hertzing quickly sized up the situation. “When the golf course was built, there were not many houses nearby,” explains Hertzing. “Over the past years, houses have been built and commerce has surrounded the golf course Traffic has increased, there is more noise; people driving by on freeway detract from the overall golf experience.” Hertzing’s first charge as superintendent was to create a sense of privacy and visual separation from the urban bustle so that players could enjoy a relaxing round of golf.

The bulk of Hertzing’s 150-acre effort went into creating a landscape screen on three sides of the property, about 9000 linear feet. When the course was first completed, 500 trees and an additional 1000 plants had been installed to border fairways. By 2002, however, they needed help.

In addition, Hertzing replaced outdated plant materials close to the remodeled clubhouse with the year-round color and greenery of flowering trees, shrubs, and perennials. Hertzing, together with Goodmanson and the country club’s General Manager, chose a rich and inviting color scheme of dark green, red, purple, and pink for the landscape. For plant material, Hertzing turned to Miramar Wholesale Nurseries.

Miramar Wholesale Nurseries supplied the project with literally hundreds of plants. Many are enormous boxed trees such as the 72” boxed Brazilian pepper (Schinus terebinthifolius), and 60” and 48” boxed pines. Those trees, along with California Pepper (Schinus molle), Carolina laurel (Prunus caroliniana), and giant timber bamboo (Bambusa oldhamii) are just a few of the plants installed as part of the landscape screen.

Tom Ewing, a consultant with Miramar Wholesale Nurseries, says that it is common for the nursery to consult with clients on plant selection and creating a plant palette. Often, in fact, architects and designers tour the nursery locations, ask questions of the staff and revise plant lists based on what they learn. Once the plant palette is set, nursery staff procures the plants and when necessary, contract grows them. A project need not be as massive as Valencia Country Club’s however, for this kind of attention from Miramar Wholesale Nurseries. It could be a smaller commercial property or even a residential development.

As the Valencia project approaches completion, the results are impressive. A handsome collection of flowering and foliage plants surrounds the clubhouse. The color palette is carried out using, for example, the red-bronze leaves of Phormium ‘Amazing Red,’ the bright pink blooms of rockrose Cistus purpureus, the deep purple leaves of the flowering plum Prunus cerasifera ‘Krauter Vesuvius,’ and the brush-like coral flowers and red grooved bark of Eucalyptus sideroxylon.



In talking about the project, Hertzing describes his goal: “I am a golfer,” he says. “My goal has been to enhance the beauty of the club for the long-term. Five years down the road, I want to look back and see that I’ve improved the overall level of the club by creating atmosphere and making it inviting.”

Ever the businessman, Heritage Golf Group’s Goodmanson puts it this way, “If you want to enjoy an exceptionally high quality membership experience at a world class golf course… this is it.”

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Nan Sterman is a freelance garden writer and owner of Plant Soup

Productions in San Diego County, CA.

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