Vincent Johnson wants LA’s public courses to lose the country-club image

A well-kept public golf course can have an unexpected problem: people assume it is private. Vincent Johnson, who became Los Angeles County Parks’ director of golf in 2025, identifies that misunderstanding as a barrier to participation. Residents see an attractive course and read it as a country club. For someone responsible for 20 public courses across 18 locations, correcting that impression is part of the job. An affordable round cannot bring someone into golf if they never realise the course is open to them.^[1]

Johnson arrived with experience on both sides of the game’s divide between competitive ambition and everyday recreation. An Oregon State collegiate golfer, he went on to compete on the APGA Tour and won the Long Beach Open in 2010. He was also the first recipient of the Charlie Sifford Exemption into the tournament now known as the Genesis Invitational. His route into administration began with an interest in teaching and helping players earlier in their golfing lives.^[1]

That brought him back to the municipal system he had grown up using in Portland. He joined Portland Parks and Recreation as assistant golf director, later became director and spent eight years with the department. The move to Los Angeles therefore represented a change of scale and setting rather than a conversion from tournament golf to public service. He had already made the shift from pursuing his own scores to managing places where other people could begin.^[1]

The value of a shorter course

At the centre of Johnson’s thinking is a case for municipal golf as community infrastructure. He values courses as open space, places to learn and points of connection for residents. Executive and par-three layouts have a particular role in that argument: he identifies their lower green fees as another way to make a golf experience affordable. Their worth need not depend on how closely they resemble a championship venue. A shorter course can serve a different purpose, giving the public a less costly way into the game.^[1]

Maggie Hathaway in South Los Angeles gives that philosophy a specific address. Johnson credits groundwork completed before his arrival and the involvement of American Golf and the Maggie Hathaway Foundation, with Gil Hanse designing the course and shaping its greens. In a historically and predominantly Black community, he sees the project as a way to serve neighbours and sustain Hathaway’s legacy. Johnson says rounds have almost doubled, although he gives no comparison period. His broader point is about who feels entitled to take part.^[1]

Youth programmes supply another connection. Johnson points to partnerships with Youth on Course, SCGA Junior, Southern Area Youth Programs and First Tee, alongside the county’s developing youth programme, including Drop Zone classes and Future Fairways summer camps. He presents programming and mentorship as companions to affordability: reducing the cost matters, but so does giving a newcomer a reason to arrive and someone to help them start.^[1]

That makes communication a practical responsibility, rather than an optional promotional exercise. Johnson describes county parks director Norma García-Gonzalez as an active supporter of getting the public-golf message out. The challenge is to make the invitation as visible as the fairways. Maintaining an appealing course and explaining its public purpose have to work together; otherwise, the very appearance of care can reinforce the wrong idea about who it is for.^[1]