By Eric Engelbert

Quick context. In July 2021, Mile Square Golf Course in Fountain Valley went from 36 holes to 18. Most golfers I talk to think back property taxes were the reason. They weren't. The real story is a $3.6 million back-rent dispute on county-owned land, and it's a useful lesson in how easily a public golf course can lose ground when the land underneath it belongs to someone else.

The third Orange County golf course story in three years. This one is different.

I've been writing about Orange County golf course losses for a while now. Oak Creek in Irvine is being proposed for 3,100 new homes. Newport Beach Golf Course is losing land to a surf park. Costa Mesa Country Club may lose holes to a road for the Fairview housing project. Each of those is driven by some flavor of development pressure.

Mile Square is different. There was no housing project. No surf park. No state housing mandate. The course shrank because the operator and the landowner couldn't agree on what was owed in rent, and the deal they cut to settle it cost the public 93 acres of golf.

What Mile Square Actually Was

Mile Square Regional Park is a 607-acre county-owned park sitting between Fountain Valley, Santa Ana, and Westminster. Inside it were three 18-hole golf courses. Two of them, the Classic Course (opened 1969) and the Players Course (added in 1999), were operated by a single partnership, Mile Square Golf Course LLC. The third 18-hole course at the park is operated separately and was not affected by what follows.

For more than 50 years, that partnership ran a 36-hole public facility on county land, paying rent under a long-term lease. Then came the 2017 audit.

The 2017 Audit and the $3.6 Million Number

The dispute, in plain numbers:

  • $3.6 million. Amount the county said the operator had underpaid in rent over several years, based on a routine audit.
  • The operator disputed it. An outside consultant they hired said the rent had been correctly calculated.
  • The county owned the land. That's the part everyone forgot.

This is the part that surprises most people. The audit didn't allege fraud or anything close to it. It was a disagreement about how the rent formula in the lease should be applied. But because the county owned the land and the operator did not, the conversation about who was right became a conversation about what happens next.

The Settlement

Rather than litigate the underpayment, the county and the operator restructured the deal:

  1. The operator returned 93 acres to Orange County.
  2. The 36-hole facility was consolidated to a single 18-hole course. The Players Course closed in July 2021, and some Classic Course holes were also reshuffled. The old Players #1 was reversed and woven into the consolidated routing.
  3. In exchange, the operator got a lower, sustainable rent, more in line with what other county golf concessionaires were paying.
  4. The operator also folded in upgrades: 90 new carts, redone driving range irrigation, refurbished banquet facilities, and a new wedding garden.
  5. Green fees were not raised.

The piece worth remembering: the operator kept the price the same for the players. The cost of the settlement was paid in acreage, not in green fees.

What the 93 Acres Are Becoming

The county didn't take the land back to sell it or develop housing. The master plan, championed at the time by then-Supervisor Andrew Do, repurposed the 93 acres for public recreation in some of the lower-income neighborhoods the park serves. Planned uses include walking trails, a grassy meadow with amphitheater, a nature camp for kids, botanical gardens, a visitor center, picnic and group camping areas, and a raised boardwalk over a wetland pond.

That's a meaningfully different outcome from Oak Creek or Newport Beach. Those courses are losing land to development. Mile Square lost land to expanded public park use.

The Political Side Worth Knowing

The plan was approved at the July 13, 2021 Board of Supervisors meeting. Supervisor Katrina Foley, whose district borders the park, asked county staff to present the master plan publicly during the meeting. Board Chairman Andrew Do cut her off and asked the public to refer to the project document, which was attached as page 1,355 of the meeting's agenda packet. The plan was approved without a full presentation.

Fountain Valley Councilman Glenn Grandis later said the county's outreach (two public input meetings in 2019, plus surveys at park events) was "one-directional." Foley called the supervisors' decision to skip a public walk-through of a multi-million-dollar park plan "outrageous."

If that sounds familiar, it should. The same pattern, where the public is told a plan exists but never quite shown what's in it, is happening right now around the Costa Mesa Country Club and the Fairview Developmental Center plan.

Why This Matters for Other OC Courses

The Mile Square story isn't really about one golf course. It's about a structural reality most public-golf players never think about: a lot of Orange County golf is played on land that the operator doesn't own.

That doesn't make the courses unstable in any everyday sense. They're well run, packed with players, and generating real revenue. But it means the underlying lease, and the relationship between the operator and the landowner, is the thing that determines whether a course stays a course.

Orange County Golf Courses on Leased Land

A non-exhaustive list of OC courses where the land is leased or publicly owned:

  • Mile Square Golf Course (Fountain Valley). County-owned land, operated under lease by Mile Square Golf Course LLC. Consolidated from 36 to 18 holes in 2021.
  • Costa Mesa Country Club / Costa Mesa Municipal Golf Course (Costa Mesa). City-owned, operated under concession. Currently at the center of the Fairview Developmental Center fight.
  • Newport Beach Golf Course (Newport Beach). Sits on John Wayne Airport land, which is county-owned. The lease for the land expires in 2027. The course is privately operated.
  • The Huntington Club, formerly Seacliff Country Club (Huntington Beach). Private country club operating on leased land. New ownership has been reinvesting in the course in recent years.

There are likely others. If you operate or play a course in OC where the land underneath you is leased, that lease is the document that decides what the next twenty years look like. Most golfers never read it. Most lease decisions are made without them in the room.

The Real Lesson

When a course gets shut down or shrunk, the headline almost always points at the developer or the city council. The Mile Square story shows the quieter version. A back-of-house disagreement about a rent calculation can do the same thing a developer can. It just doesn't make the front page.

If the land is leased, the lease wins. Every time. The strongest protection a public course has isn't the loyalty of its players. It's a long, well-structured lease with a fair rent calculation that holds up under audit.

My Take, From a Scratch Handicap

I played both Classic and Players at Mile Square before the consolidation. The Players course had its quirks, but losing it was a real loss for working players in the area. What kept Mile Square worth caring about was the same thing that keeps Costa Mesa Country Club worth caring about: access and price. A regular person could play a regulation course there without spending a private-club budget. That doesn't exist in most of California anymore.

The piece of the Mile Square outcome that gets less attention than it deserves is that the operator held green fees flat through the settlement. They could have used the new, lower rent as an excuse to upgrade pricing. They didn't. That's the model. When public courses change shape, the green fee for the average player has to be the one number that stays the same.

A public golf course that becomes unaffordable hasn't been saved. It's been replaced with a nicer one most people who used it can no longer play.

What This Means for Costa Mesa Real Estate

If you live near, or are buying near, any of the OC courses on leased land, the lease structure is part of your due diligence whether you realize it or not. A few things worth thinking through:

  • Golf-adjacent home premiums are real, but they're tied to the amenity remaining intact. A course that's been consolidated or downsized changes the value proposition for nearby homes.
  • Renewal dates matter. The Newport Beach Golf Course lease expires in 2027. That's a date worth knowing if you live in a community whose value depends on that course.
  • Operator changes are signals. A new operator on an existing lease often means new economics, which often means changes to layout, amenities, or pricing.
  • "Publicly owned" does not mean "permanent." Mile Square is the cleanest example of that in OC.

Other OC Golf-Course Stories in This Series

  1. Costa Mesa Country Club May Lose Holes to Fairview Housing Project. Here's Why.
  2. Oak Creek Golf Club May Be Replaced by 3,100 New Homes. What's Next for Irvine?
  3. Newport Beach Golf Course, Surf Park, and Housing: The Airport Area Transformation.

Explore Homes for Sale Near Mile Square and Other OC Courses

  1. Fountain Valley: Homes for Sale in Fountain Valley
  2. Costa Mesa: Homes for Sale in Costa Mesa
  3. Huntington Beach: Homes for Sale in Huntington Beach
  4. Newport Beach: Homes for Sale in Newport Beach
  5. Irvine: Homes for Sale in Irvine

The Bigger Question

Orange County still has some of the best, busiest, most affordable public golf in California. The Mile Square outcome shows that the threat to those courses isn't always a developer with a 3,000-home master plan. Sometimes it's a routine audit and a clause in a lease. If you care about keeping public golf in OC the way it is, the place to pay attention isn't only the city council. It's the renewal calendar on every long-term lease in the county.