California Passes Law Banning Tee Time Brokers At Municipal Golf Courses

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Every weekend golfer knows the feeling, you try to book a tee time at municipal course and seconds later the tee time is gone. In some large cities, especially in California, the problem wasn’t too many golfers trying to get tee times – it was brokers. With the signing of a new bill, the practice will now be illegal.

On Sunday, September 27, governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1954, better known as the “PAR”(Protecting Access to Reservations) Act. The law bans third-party websites and brokers from listing, advertising, promoting, selling or transferring tee times at publicly owned golf courses without a written permission agreement from the golf course.

The bill was brought forward in the California assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego) and was sponsored by the California Alliance for Golf, which is an advocacy/lobby group managed by the Southern California Golf Association.

Ward made a statement after the bill’s signing, stating, “public golf courses belong to the public, and residents shouldn’t have to compete with brokers buying up tee times just to turn around and sell them at inflated prices.” Ward went on to say, “this legislation puts an end to this unfair practice and helps ensure local residents, seniors, students and families can continue accessing the public courses their communities support.”

The brokering of public tee times in California became national news in 2024, when it was reported that brokers were taking all of the public tee times at multiple golf courses. They were then reselling them through social media and messaging apps for a broker fee on top of the standard green fee, often $30 to $40 per tee time. It was a golf content creator named Dave Fink who brought the practice to light when he documented a broker transaction for his audiences on social media. Shortly after, the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks opened an investigation into the practice of tee time brokering.

In 2025, two tee time brokers were indicted by the FBI for failing to report slightly more than $1 million to the IRS. According to prosecutors, some $700,000 of it came from reselling tee times between 2021 and 2023. During that investigation, Ted Kim, one of the brokers charged, claimed, “it’s not like I’m taking advantage of technology. I’m booking myself. I’m not doing anything illegal.”

The “PAR” Act was part of a bill that had a package of consumer-protection measures that also banned the resale of restaurant reservations. The law does not touch private golf clubs, resorts and daily-fee courses that aren’t publicly owned. It will also not create more tee times at already crowded municipal courses. It creates a pretty straightforward way to book a tee time – book directly through the golf course or from an authorized partner. Anyone trying to sell tee times on the side are now operating illegally.

Mike is a founding member of Break80 Golf and a contributing golf and sports writer for Forbes with PGA Tour and LIV Golf media credentials. Mike can be reached at break80podcast@gmail.com for inquiries and story leads.