Golf on Long Island

Observations: Spring Lake Golf Club

Spring has been slow to take hold on Long Island, but it seems to have arrived for good at Spring Lake Golf Club, and it doesn't have anything to do with the name.  All that was missing at the Middle Island course this past weekend were the leaves on the trees, which works in golfers' favor for just a short time longer.

Approaching the course from the opposite side of its namesake lake provided the perfect vantage point to admire the deep summer-esque green of the course standing out between the brown trees, themselves just starting to show first signs of color.  The course's fairways were in beautiful shape and the greens rolled fast and smooth -- if you ignored the bare branches and the hand-stinging chill that rolled in as the afternoon round wound down, you'd think you were playing in June.   

Spring Lake's crew deserves credit for having the course in such impressive condition so early in a season of cool, uncooperative weather.  Last fall, new drainage systems were installed on #1, #7 and #10 of the Thunderbird Course, with more planned for this season.  The grounds crew was hard at work this weekend preparing the 13th green for play (a temporary green stood in).

You're running out of time to take advantage of the relatively bare limbs at the heavily wooded Thunderbird Course and the Sandpiper nine.  Once May hits, trees overhanging the rough and fairways will be in midseason obstructionist form.  Good weather or bad, balls that settle inside the treeline sit at the mercy of green-blocking tree trunks.

For the full Spring Lake overview, check out the Thunderbird and Sandpiper flyovers.

"Eagles for Education" Golf Outing at Mill Pond, May 13

Upper Room Christian School of Dix Hills is inviting area golfers to participate in its "Eagles for Education" Golf Outing and help support the school's need-based scholarship fund.  The outing will be held on Monday, May 13 at Mill Pond Golf Course in Medford.

Tee time is scheduled for 7:45 a.m.  Prior to the event, players can enjoy a continental breakfast and practice on the range.  A barbecue lunch will follow the round, in addition to a silent auction, raffles, 50/50 prize and awards presentation.  Entry fee is $150 for single golfers or $500 for a foursome.  Players and sponsors can register online at Upper Room's golf outing website.

Upper Room's Scholarship Fund gives children from failing school districts and systems the educational opportunities they deserve.  Visit the Upper Room website for more information on the school and the scholarship fund.

Mill Pond is a wide-open, wind-blown course in Medford.  Driving areas are spacious, but fescue and mounding can sneak up on players who get careless.  For more on the course, check out the Mill Pond flyover.

Newsday runs correction for use of false data in golf business feature

Newsday has published a correction of the false data that ran in a graphic in the Sunday LI Business cover story on April 7 regarding Long Island golf courses.  The correction appears in the Wednesday, April 17 print edition.

The business feature, which analyzed the "shrinking" of the local golf course industry, claimed that the number of golf courses on Long Island has fallen from 279 in 2004 to 269 in 2012 (after rising from 247 in 1993).  However, none of those figures are accurate.  Golf On Long Island's reaction to the original Newsday story can be found here.

Newsday's correction reads as follows:

"The number of Long Island golf facilities -- defined as a single location where one can play at least nine holes of golf -- fell from 129 in 2004 to 127 in 2013.  A graphic in an April 7 story misstated the number of golf facilities."

As Newsday's golf writer Mark Herrmann reported last week, the recently closed Middle Bay Country Club in Oceanside will reopen next month as the semi-private South Bay Country Club.  So that 2013 figure will soon be back up to 128, leaving The Links at Shirley as the only course to close permanently since 2004.

Rock Hill to host 29th annual St. Jude R.C. Church Golf Outing on May 8

St. Jude Roman Catholic Church of Mastic Beach will hold its 29th annual golf outing at Rock Hill Golf and Country Club in Manorville on Wednesday, May 8.  All proceeds from the event will support St. Jude's parish outreach program. 

Participants in this year's outing will certainly be well fed.  The $150 entry fee includes buffet breakfast, lunch at the turn, on-course beverages and snacks, a post-round dinner and open bar.  There will also be a putting competition and several hole contests during the round.  Format for the event is team scramble.

Shotgun start is scheduled for 10:00 a.m.  Registration and breakfast begin at 8:00.  Interested golfers, sponsors and dinner guests can sign up for the golf outing at stjudegolf.org.

At 7,050 yards from the tips, Rock Hill is one of Long Island's longest golf courses.  It finished in second place in 2012 and 2013 in the annual Long Island Press "Best of LI" reader poll, behind only Bethpage State Park.  For more on the Manorville course, check out the Rock Hill flyover.

Bay Park open again in East Rockaway

After a silent start to the spring, the Bay Park Golf Course is open again along the south shore in East Rockaway.  The gates to the clubhouse and parking lot had been locked and phone calls to the park left unanswered since Hurricane Sandy tore through the area in October. 

Shortly after the storm, Golf On Long Island stopped by and noted some damage on and around the course.  The surrounding area and neighborhood have been in the news since Sandy because of damage to the treatment plant located inside Bay Park.

Bay Park's reopening means all four Nassau County nine-hole municipal courses are now available for play.  For more on the course, check out the Bay Park flyover.

Bethpage, Eisenhower are local sites for nationwide "Drive, Chip and Putt" junior competition

Believe it or not, there's a way for the junior golfer in your life to play Augusta National that doesn't require trespassing or becoming the world's youngest corporate bigwig.

As told to the national viewing audience this week by Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo, junior golfers across the country can compete for the chance to walk Augusta National next April as part of the Drive, Chip and Putt Championship, a golf event made possible by the USGA, PGA and Masters Tournament Foundation.  This memorable experience is open to boys and girls from age 7 to 15.

Bethpage State Park and Eisenhower Park are the two Long Island sites that will host local qualifiers in the Metropolitan New York/New Jersey region.  Entry in the competition is free.  Participation at all local sites is limited and will be selected by random drawing from the pool of applicants.

Winners in each of four age groups at the local qualifiers will advance to regional competitions, with regional winners then earning a spot in the national final at Augusta National on Sunday, April 6, 2014.  Complete competition rules, eligibility requirements and scoring outlines are available at the Drive, Chip and Putt website.

Deadline to register online for the Drive, Chip and Putt Championship is Tuesday, April 30.

Treat Mom to holiday golf at Spring Lake's Mother's Day nine

Show Mom your appreciation by teaming up with her and sinking a key putt to beat Dad at Spring Lake Golf Club's Mother's Day celebration, beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, May 12.

For $95, you and Mom play nine holiday holes with cart and enjoy two post-round cocktails each plus hors d'oeuvres.  Even better, bring the family (of four) and play, eat and drink for a total of $175.

Groups participating in the Mother's Day special will tee off starting at 10:00.  Reserve a spot by calling (631) 924-5115.

Newsday report features false data to support negative view of Long Island golf industry

[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.

Newsday: Long Island golf business not booming

[Read Golf On Long Island's take on the Newsday article: 
Newsday report features false data to support negative view of Long Island golf industry]

The business of golf on Long Island is "in the rough" according to a report published Thursday on Newsday.com.

Newsday's Ted Phillips said the Long Island golf industry is "shrinking" thanks to the combined effects of the course-building boom of the late 1990s, the struggling economy and a change in leisure priorities.  Phillips points to a drop in rounds at Long Island's state parks over the past 15 years:

New York State operates six golf facilities on Long Island: Bethpage (which has four courses in addition to the Black), Sunken Meadow, Montauk Downs, Sag Harbor, Jones Beach and Robert Moses. 

In 1998, golfers played 576,850 rounds at those public courses. Game play slid by 19 percent in the next 10 years to 466,343 rounds -- and fell even more after the financial crisis of 2008, dropping to 369,595 rounds last year. -- Ted Phillips, Newsday, 4/4/2013

Read the full report on Newsday.com.

2013 Summer Golf Camps on Long Island

Early in the spring, practice for the new season is typically confined to the driving range.  But when the heat arrives, not only is it time for everyone to start enjoying time on the course, it's also time for junior golfers to form and polish their game with help from experienced professionals. 

Learning doesn't have to stop when the school year ends -- teaching pros all over Long Island have developed summer camp programs that school junior golfers in the fundamentals of golf, the golf swing and course etiquette, among other aspects of the game.  These golf camps offered at a handful of Long Island courses are designed to either put the first building blocks in place for newcomers or provide expert guidance for juniors looking to take their game to the next level. 

The following is a list of 2013 summer junior golf camps available and open for registration at various public courses around Long Island.   For more information, follow the links below to the course websites and junior camp pages. 

(Please note that this is not a complete list of Long Island summer golf camps.  If a course or facility is not included here, contact them directly to learn about their available camps and clinics.)

Crab Meadow:  The High School Development Program is a unique instruction and competition experience designed for the intermediate player looking to advance his or her game.  On-course play includes lessons in course management, short game, club selection and bunker play, as well as head-to-head match competition.  Three-hour sessions take place weekly in July and August.  Call (631) 499-8005 for price and program schedule.

Dix Hills Park:  Basic Program open to junior players from age 6 to 14 with limited or no golf experience.  The program stresses safety, rules and etiquette through games and contests in a fun atmosphere.  Club Division open to boys and girls who are ready for on-course instruction and play.  Campers in this program receive advanced instruction and are introduced to various competition formats.  Six-week sessions take place on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and begin the week of July 8.  Cost is $325 (Basic)/$350 (Club).  Visit the junior golf program page for more info.

Gold Coast Golf Center at the Town of Oyster Bay Golf Course:  Half-day camps available for kids from age 6 to 9 with rates starting at $199.  Beginners and intermediate golfers focus on fundamentals in an environment designed to foster development and interest in the sport.  Full-day camps include on-course instruction and are open to juniors from age 10 to 17 with rates starting at $499.  All programs begin on June 10 with sessions available through August.  Other programs and discounts are available.  Visit the registration page for full camp info.

Great Rock Golf Club:  Half-day camps are open to boys and girls age 7 to 14 and run in four separate sessions from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., Monday to Thursday, beginning June 24.  Campers receive a Great Rock hat and final-day pizza party.  The cost is $199 per child, per session.  Full-day camps are open to boys and girls age 9 to 16 and run in five separate sessions from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Monday to Thursday, beginning July 8.  The cost is $399 per child, per session.  Full-day campers receive on-course instruction, Great Rock hat and daily lunch.  For more, see the Great Rock camp flyer.

Harbor Links Golf Course:  All camps are split into AM and PM sessions beginning the week of June 24.  Weekly programs for kids age 6 to 9 run Tuesday to Friday and include games and drills that help develop important skills and fundamentals.  Separate programs for teens age 10 to 16 run Monday to Friday and cover the full swing, short game, course management, rules and etiquette, and conclude with a two-day "Junior Scramble" team tournament.  Cost is $410 for the 6-9 camp and $585 for the 10-16 camp, with discounts available for family and friends.  For all program information, schedules and registration forms, visit the Harbor Links website.

Indian Island Country Club:  Weekly full-day camps include lunch, prizes, skills contests and on-course competition.  Camps are open to boys and girls of all skill levels between the ages of 7 and 16.  Fees are $450 per week, per camper, with family, returnee and multi-week discounts available.  Sessions begin July 1 and last through August.  See the Indian Island camp brochure for all details.

Lido Golf Club:  Camps are open to golfers age 6 and up, with all skill levels welcome.  Week-long programs focus on swing fundamentals, short-game skills and techniques, course play, etiquette and rules.  Evening camp sessions (5:00 to 7:00 p.m.) are available beginning the week of June 24; morning camp sessions (9:00 to 11:00 a.m.) the week of July 1.  Enrollment is $300 per session.  Visit the Lido website or Chuck Kupfer Golf for details.

Pine Hills Country Club:  Four-week programs take place on Tuesday evenings and are open to boys and girls from age 7 to 14.  First session begins July 2; second session begins August 6.  Campers will learn putting, chipping, full swing and etiquette, and receive on-course lessons from two PGA teaching professionals.  Registration is $295 ($275 before June 25).  For additional information, check out the camp brochure.

Poxabogue Golf Center:  Sessions run Monday through Friday and are open to boys and girls from age 7 to 16.  All campers receive daily lunch, shirt, hat and prizes, and will learn basics of the full swing, short game, putting, rules, etiquette and sportsmanship.  Cost is $475 per week, per camper, with family, returnee and multi-week discounts available.  Sessions begin July 1 and last through August.  See the camp application for details.

Smithtown Landing Country Club:  Contact the Smithtown Landing pro shop for information about details and availability of summer programs led by PGA professional and Hall of Famer Michael Hebron.  Call (631) 979-6534.

Spring Lake Golf Club:  Programs available for kids from age 8 to 11 (July 16-18) and teens from age 12 to 14 (July 30-August 1).  Three-day camps teach swing fundamentals in a fun environment with on-course play each day.  Cost is $179 per child.  Visit the Spring Lake website for details.

Timber Point Golf Course:  Six-week Basic Program is designed for new players from age 7 to 10, and focuses on fundamentals, safety, rules and etiquette through fun games and contests.  Club Division (four-week and eight-week programs available) is open to experienced juniors from age 11 to 15 and includes advanced instruction and on-course play.  Basic and Club sessions begin in late June and run through mid-August.  Call (631) 581-2401 or e-mail timberpointgolfcourse@yahoo.com for price, schedule and registration information.

West Sayville Golf Course:  Eight-week programs (total of eight four-hour sessions) are available on Tuesdays through Fridays beginning July 2.  Campers receive instruction at the range and on the course, with instruction concentrating on all aspects of the swing, including grip, stance and alignment, plus bunker play and video analysis.  The $450 fee also includes shirt, hat and rule book.  Visit the course website and download the camp registration form for more information.