[Newsday published a correction in its April 17 print edition for the use of misinformation in its April 7 feature. Read the correction here.]
While there's no way to dispute that rounds are down from previous highs and
that Long Island golf courses are competing for customer dollars against
additional and often cheaper leisure alternatives, nothing in Newsday's report
is a new revelation. And some of it is simply false.
There are not 269 golf courses on Long Island, as Newsday’s
Sunday feature claims (Newsday photo and graphic pictured right; click to enlarge). Not even close. Careless misinformation
like that calls the entire Sunday Business cover story into question. Chop that number in half and you're closer to the ballpark.
The "shrinking" of the Long Island golf industry is a local
symptom of an ongoing national problem. The golf explosion of the 1990s
created a tremendous supply of golf courses nationwide, and changing social and economic
conditions have since stalled demand. In some areas of the country, golf
courses come and go with much more regularity.
For instance, along Myrtle Beach’s "Grand Strand," where supply swelled
in the ‘90s boom, more than a dozen publics have closed – most, if not all,
since 2000. (MBGA.com, a constantly
updated Myrtle Beach course directory, has the current closed-course count in
the area at 22.) We played at a course
in 2005 that was closed for development the following year, and to date, still
sits vacant, its 54 fairways and greens deteriorating and left to nature. (Read more in this Sports Illustrated piece from May 2006.)
Here on Long Island, of the more than 70 public golf courses, fewer than a dozen
were built within the last 20 years. Some others were expanded or
redesigned during that time from previous clubs or courses. And only one – The Links at Shirley – has
closed in the recent past. The private Middle Bay Country Club in Oceanside, one of roughly 70 private clubs on the Island confronted with their own unique set of issues in terms of modern-day business models and membership interests, closed earlier this year, unfortunately, with assistance from Hurricane Sandy.
The Newsday report says “many courses are scrambling for customers,” then
supports the statement by pointing at discounted membership rates offered at
two clubs, and uses that data to represent all of Long Island golf – both
public and private.
One of those clubs, the private Woodside Acres in Muttontown, lost many of
its members as a result of the recession (as Newsday wrote in January 2010) when it was known as
the Woodcrest Club and filed for bankruptcy in December 2009.
As Newsday's Mark Herrmann reported in September 2011, the owners who purchased the club at
auction decided to keep membership rates high in order to attract members looking for a classic country-club experience, while neighboring clubs were doing the opposite. Yet Newsday cites this facility as a representative of the entire local industry.
It should also be noted that the semi-private Island’s End Golf &
Country Club (pictured left), the other facility cited for its membership discount, recently
announced on its website a 10-year extension of its property lease and the
opening of a new on-site restaurant, amid other upgrades.
Rather than ring in the new season by taking a negative angle supported by
false data and cherry-picked information, Newsday could have taken a different
approach and focused on the management and maintenance staff at courses like
Lido Golf Club and Timber Point that succeeded in making their facilities – submerged and
severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy – playable again by March. Or the crews at Bethpage that cleared
hundreds of trees across five courses and will have all 90 holes open for play
by mid-April, as usual. From a business
standpoint, Newsday could have spotlighted the courses around the Island that
have worked proactively through hard times to retain and grow their customer
bases, like Sandy Pond in Riverhead and Great Rock Golf Club in Wading River, the latter of which has renovated parts of the course
to players’ benefit each of the past two seasons while keeping rates steady.
The 1990s era was one that we will likely never see again. Waits were hours long on
nine-hole munis. We recall walking off
a packed Bay Park Golf Course in the summer of 1997 because it took three hours
to play six holes. Ask any golfer from that time and they will undoubtedly have similar stories to share. Rounds at Eisenhower Park hit the six-hour
mark with regularity. Business was off
the charts, but it didn’t make for a great playing experience.
Since then, the market has brought demand down, perhaps to a more sustainable level. Tee times remain hard to come
by at many Long Island courses during peak season.
If golf courses have to work a little harder to generate more demand and come up with creative ways to appeal to more players,
they are in the same boat as plenty of other local businesses and industries in this
economic climate.
Newsday chose to dump on an important local industry on the
eve of a new season, which is certainly its right. But it could have at least used legitimate
information in the process. It claims that
the Long Island golf industry is “in the rough” and “off course.”
While Newsday might have a problem using factual data, at
least it has a strong handle on its use of metaphors.
