Phil Mickelson Design Firm To Lead Renovation Of North Course At Torrey Pines

Golfer Phil Mickelson and his course design firm "have been selected by the City of San Diego’s golf operations department to perform what is being termed a 'renovation' of the North Course" at Torrey Pines, according to Tod Leonard of the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE. The current "cost estimate for the project is close to $7 million." San Diego City Golf Manager Mark Marney said that he "expects the work would begin soon after the PGA Tour’s Farmers Insurance Open is completed in early 2015." Marney added that Mickelson is "waiving his personal fee for the work, though his design team will be paid." Leonard writes the North Course is "not very popular among PGA Tour players, who ranked it 48th of 52 venues in a poll by Golf World magazine earlier this year." Meanwhile, public reaction "to extensive work on the North Course is likely to be widely divergent" (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 12/11).