Diamond in the rough: Diamond Oaks Golf Course in Roseville celebrating 60th birthday

Securing a tee time at Diamond Oaks Golf Course was once a treasured possession, a chore that had the admiration of one's golfing buddies. Back in its infancy and continuing into the early 1990s, the Roseville track was one of only a half dozen municipal, 18-hole golf courses in the Sacramento region. Looking to play weekend golf? Get a tee time early Monday morning or join a long line on the wait list, because the demand to play was overwhelming every day of the week. In its peak years, the pro shop was a revolving door of golfers for a course that somehow managed to accommodate 110,000 rounds of golf per year, which more than doubles the 52,000 rounds Diamond Oaks hosted in 2022. The venerable northeast Roseville course has been the primary home for hundreds of local golfers dating to 1963, when a pudgy golfer named Jack Nicklaus captured his first of six Masters, taking home a winner's share of $20,000, a pittance by today's standards. Nicklaus is long gone from the PGA Tour, but Diamond Oaks is still thriving, celebrating its 60th birthday this year. These days, a round at Diamond Oaks doesn't always require a reservation. Show up many days after 11 a.m. and chances are you will be standing on the first tee following a short wait. A friendly layout that only goes 6,179 yards from the back tees, Diamond Oaks attracts male and female golfers of all ages and skill levels. On a recent Tuesday in July, Paul Gonzalez of Roseville had no tee time but quickly gets paired with two out-of-town golfers. No worries. A friendly sort with a solid game, Gonzalez may not know his playing partners, but he knows the course. A member of the Roseville Golf Club, he pays a yearly fee and gets his money's worth, typically playing Diamond Oaks three days a week. "The course is always in good shape and it fits my game," said Gonzalez, whose been on the Diamond Oaks Rose Cup team three times, helping them win twice. "I like the course and the people here that play and run it. It's a friendly environment. It feels like home to me." Tim Briggs still enjoys playing Diamond Oaks and recalls the golden years, when tee times were cherished. Back then, Brigg had a distinct advantage. His retired father, Charles Briggs, lived down the street from Diamond Oaks and many Monday mornings his ritual was getting his son a Saturday tee time. The elder Briggs would arrive at the golf course by 6:30 a.m., buy a cup of coffee and be near the front of a long line that extended way outside the pro shop door. A short time later, he would depart with a tee time for his son. "My dad would get me a 7:30 tee time for a Saturday morning foursome. And as soon as I would hear from my dad, I would tell the golfers in my office. I would have to beat them off me with a 5-iron because they all wanted to play golf with me that Saturday," laughs Briggs, now a Folsom resident who grew up in the Sacramento region. Roseville was just a modest, unassuming Sacramento bedroom community when people began teeing it up at Diamond Oaks in the fall of 1963. Small cities around the country like Roseville wanted more, and in the early 1960s the federal government would gladly oblige. Diamond Oaks was funded on federal revenue bonds. One year after Diamond Oaks opened, Look magazine recognized Roseville as one of its All-American Cities, partly due to the revenue bonds it used to finance community projects like the golf course. The award was a nice birthday gift for Roseville, which celebrated its 100th birthday in 1964. Although it's been six decades since opening, course architect Ted Robinson is still being praised for the Diamond Oaks layout. Utilizing the natural hilly terrain and the abundance of sturdy oak trees, Robinson moved very little dirt in establishing a course that was aesthetic and featured a variety of different, unique holes. The mature oak trees give the course character and the rolling terrain provides more of a challenge than some established courses in the Sacramento region. The course has rolling hills, is wide open on many holes, but the ever-present oak trees make it tight in some locations. Staying out of the trees is always a major priority. Keeping the ball straight off the tee can lead to many short irons approaching the greens. Of the 10 par-4 holes, only one goes more than 400 yards. That would be No. 18, a finishing hole that measures 443 yards from the tips and is the No. 1 handicap. There's one more key ingredient to the Robinson design: playability. No one appreciates that more than Ed Vasconcellos, who spent 31 years as the Diamond Oaks head professional after taking over for George Moulton in September 1969. "You know what people always say about Diamond Oaks? 'I shot my best round here.' The course never beats you up," said Vasconcellos, who retired in 2000. "More municipal courses should be designed like that, but they aren't. Diamond Oaks is a good test of golf. And golfers enjoy it, which is the name of the game." Speaking of enjoyment, Vasconcellos had more than three decades of it while running all facets of the now Roseville city-owned course. He had his hands in everything – creating tournaments, giving lessons, fixing clubs, merchandising shoes, setting up exotic winter golf trips, working the front desk and offering a sounding board for any Diamond Oaks golfers. "People would come into the pro shop to shoot the bull after their round and I would talk to them," Vasconcellos said. "Golfers at Diamond Oaks were like my family." Now a longtime golf instructor at Roseville's Woodcreek Golf Club, Bill Childs spent seven years as a Diamond Oaks assistant pro. He knows how loyal Vasconcellos was to the golfers and his staff. "Ed was an old-fashioned pro, a real golf nut. And I mean that in a good way," chuckles Childs, who played Diamond Oaks as a kid and remembers when green fees were a mere $6.50. "He was there all the time, knew all the golfers and treated them and the people who worked for him like family. Ed wanted us all to succeed." Rob Frederick is currently challenging Vasconcellos for longevity and popularity. He's the friendly face of Woodcreek, the only head pro the course has known since the first golf ball headed down the opening-hole fairway in 1995. Now in his 28th year, Frederick is the Director of Golf, overseeing both Woodcreek and Diamond Oaks. He works for SRI Golf, a company that runs the two courses for the City of Roseville. Although he spends most of his work days at Woodcreek, Frederick has a genuine fondness for Diamond Oaks. As a high school golfer growing up in tiny Paradise (near Chico) in the mid-1970s, he recalls his first round at Diamond Oaks as a teenager. "Going to play Diamond Oaks was a big deal for us. It was pretty cool," Frederick said. "I can't remember how I played, but it was a special round. Our team was used to playing our nine-hole course in Paradise and Diamond Oaks was a really nice 18-hole course. That day was special." Sixty years later, the same neighborhood golf course remains special, a true diamond in the rough. Jeffrey Weidel is a former sports editor and editor who worked at the Press-Tribune for 15 years. He can be reached at skiweidel@gmail.com.