About Us

Club History

The San Diego Host Golf Club had it’s beginnings in 1991 when a small group of downtown Lions Club members wanted a way to accomplish two things: (1) Establish legitimate handicaps for players without having to join a private golf club and (2) be able to make reservations more than a week in advance for play on local golf courses.

 In January of 1991, founder Jim Purcell contacted the Southern California Golf Association in Los Angeles and asked for assistance in establishing an Affiliate golf club. SCGA sent him an information packet with all the forms and paperwork necessary to get started and once they were assured that we were serious, they set up a meeting in Del Mar to give us further direction and answer any questions we might have. Co-founder Dave Finster and Jim attended the meeting and came away with many helpful tips on organizing and running a new Affiliate club.

Among other things we gave the club it’s name, San Diego Host, which was derived from the San Diego Host Lions Club. Later,  we dropped the Lions Club part of the title because we wished to be independent and induct non-Lion golfers ( It should be noted that our Golf Club was never officially affiliated with the Lions and had maintained it’s financial independence from the start ).

We formed a Board of Directors comprised of President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, Tournament Chairman and Social Chairman. We began the 1991 year with our first tournament at Singing Hills in March and have played tournaments, big and little, every month since then, weather permitting.

The Host Golf membership was comprised solely of Lions club members for it’s first year until we realized that membership growth as such was very limited. In 1993 one of our Board members, Jim Jones, suggested that we amend our by-laws to provide membership to any player who can be vouched for by a member in good standing. This proved to be quite successful.

The Host Golf Club grew over the next eight years mostly through the efforts of Dave Finster and one of his first recruits, Tom Bateman. By the middle of the year 1997 the Club had reached a membership of 58 and it was anticipated that either our small Board had to be expanded or we would have to put a limit to the number of members we could accommodate. It was at that time that a limit of 60 total members was established. The Club also maintained it’s limit of new membership by member referral only until 2010 when open membership was being considered.

After over 32 years of existence, the San Diego Host Golf Club has proved to be a great source of golfing play and social activity.