You read about Chicago’s munis. Phoenix, Scottsdale, Orlando and cities in the Coachella Valley get some good press for the quality of their courses, if not the number. Writers aren’t always complimentary about old New York munis, but you do at least sense the love they have for places like Dyker Beach, Pelham and Van Cortlandt — courses they grew up playing and can never shake. San Francisco, Atlanta and even smaller towns like Salt Lake City and San Antonio have pretty good reputations.

Not so Los Angeles. Whatever you read — if you read anything at all about L.A. munis — it usually isn’t good. Six-hour rounds, dubious course conditions, dreadful customer service — nothing that would actually make you want to play one of them unless you were a golf addict who lived there and couldn’t afford to play somewhere nice.

The City of Angels’ 4 million souls have seven 18-hole city-owned courses to choose from, but unless you play them regularly, you don’t know what, or where, they are.

Thus, the man with an assignment to find a good one might conceivably struggle. He might crisscross the city, growing ever more weary before finally giving up after 54 ... 63 ... 72 ... perhaps 81 holes.

Were he to begin his quest at Woodley Lakes in the Sepulveda Basin, a 2,000-acre recreation area hemmed in by Interstate 5 and Highway 101 and created in 1941 when the Sepulveda Dam was built to control Los Angeles River floodwaters, he’d be making an unfortunate start.

Sure, there’s no such thing as a bad golf course. After all, any golf is preferable to most non-golf alternatives. But certainly some courses are less good than others.

Woodley Lakes is a golf course, and the fact that it exists where a dozen strip malls and parking lots might be is cause for celebration. What’s more, the driving range has grass tees, its condition is decent-to-good, the clubhouse won an award for Design Excellence and there’s some better-than-average wildlife, which is to say you’ll likely see more than a couple of starlings in a far-off tree — I advanced down the No. 4 fairway 50 paces behind a coyote, and the Canada Geese who make their winter home here are welcome visitors, even if they do defecate all over the course, turning some of the fairways into minefields.

However, Woodley Lakes is rather forgettable. The majority of its holes are really just mini versions of the driving range, and I’m guessing Ray Goates, the man who designed it in 1975, was told all the city’s construction vehicles were busy elsewhere and then given a budget that basically covered his lunch for a couple of weeks. If it weren’t for the fact that I played it with an engaging lad named Ted whose father was something big in nuclear physics, and that the San Fernando Valley Radio Control Flyers were flying their 200mph mini-jets in the adjacent Apollo II Model Aircraft Field, I might have called it a day after nine.

To cut a long story short, there’s nothing terribly exciting about the Balboa and Encino courses at Sepulveda either. To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with them, but is that enough for the traveling golfer looking for a game?

The next course — Harding at Griffith Park — came with some history, so perhaps it could provide a pleasant experience, but having discovered it had endured almost 90,000 green fees in 2010, I anticipated having my cash swiped abruptly from my hand before being hustled out to the 1st tee and indelicately inserted into some unsuspecting threesome that hadn’t planned on additional company.

I was wrong on the first count — the guy behind the cash till was a good deal more hospitable than expected — but entirely correct on the second. The three guys I joined seemed perfectly pleasant, but there was a problem; their English was about as fluent as my Japanese (Korean? Mandarin? Taiwanese?).
Language barriers are becoming ever more common in a game becoming ever more global, especially in such metropolitan cities as Los Angeles. We usually cope with a few basic words and universal hand signals, but this one was particularly hard to overcome. Beyond a quick hand shake and brief introduction, there was zero communication, and after five holes they were only too pleased to offload me onto the single coming up behind.

Jerry and I got on famously, played at a similar level (meaning we hit a lot of the same bad shots) and shared an interest in the design of the course. We agreed it was surprisingly good. It was clear that whoever had designed it knew what he was doing, but also that time and a lack of investment had seen it regress. It was one of those courses you wished could turn private for a year just so it might receive the rest and tender loving care needed to realize its potential.

Back home, I wasn’t altogether surprised to learn both the Harding and Wilson courses at Griffith Park had been created by George Thomas, the creative brilliance behind Riviera, Los Angeles and Bel-Air. The Wilson was a 1923 redesign of Tom Bendelow’s 1914 original; Harding was a Thomas layout altered drastically down the years by various parks and recreation big shots whose priorities did not include maintaining the integrity of Thomas’ work.

Alien flora had been introduced with bad results, likewise alien-er water hazards. And the bunkers had lost virtually all their character.

Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the round, meaning it had taken four courses to find a Los Angeles municipal I liked. And I hadn’t even reached the City’s supposed crown jewel — Rancho Park, designed in 1946 by Billy Bell, George Von Elm and Parks Superintendent William Johnson on the site of an old Herbert Fowler layout. Reportedly though, it, like the courses at Griffith Park and elsewhere, has seen much better days.

During the period of July 2010 through January 2011, the number of rounds played on Los Angeles munis decreased by 72,151 (12.93 percent) compared to the same period last year. L.A.’s municipal courses are certainly hurting right now, but within its rather meager inventory, the City has its gems. One can only hope the economy, demographics and a civic conscience one day collude in restoring them to their former glory.

Can’t Miss Munis?

What big cities have memorable municipal golf? Here are a few to consider:

NEW YORK
Two words for you: Bethpage Black. The beast of Nassau County and its four color-coded brethren are a good 40-minute drive east from Manhattan, but diehards travel a lot farther than that to take on the two-time U.S. Open venue (won by Lucas Glover, pictured, in 2009) and A.W. Tillinghast masterpiece. And if they can’t snag a tee time there, the very good Red and Blue courses also carry the Tillie touch.

CHICAGO
The Windy City’s Chicago Park District runs seven courses, most of them nine-holers, but full-length Jackson Park is definitely the jewel of the bunch, with narrow tree-lined fairways and muscular 3-pars. Beyond these full-on munis and outside the city limits proper is a wealth of public options including Pine Meadow, Harborside, 27-hole Cantigny and, of course, famed Cog Hill.

SEATTLE
The Emerald City gets a bad rap for its weather, especially during the summer. But from late May well into October, the sun comes out and so do thousands of golfers to enjoy top-notch munis such as Jackson Park, Jefferson Park and West Seattle — all operated by the city’s parks and rec. Locals consider West Seattle the true showpiece, not only for its skyline and Cascade views but for its design pedigree via H. Chandler Egan, who had a hand in designing 16 holes at a little ol’ resort course in California called Pebble Beach.