The term "historic" is often tossed around like a busted tee. At times in the sports world it seems anything that results in a putter or trophy held high in triumph is described as a historic "one for the ages."
But the Red Course at Eisenhower Park has earned the adjective -- a walk on its beautiful fairways is like a stroll back into the past on a course that, despite touch-ups here and there, has been preserved through time. Many of its former neighbors fell victim to economics and the demand for suburban development and only live on in hazy memories, yellowed newspaper articles and faded photographs. Roosevelt Raceway and its stables once stood just across Merrick Avenue from the Red's back nine. Torn down and paved over, the Raceway exists today as a name on a shopping center and movie theater. Farther south, Mitchel Field long ago gave way to the Nassau Coliseum, Hofstra and Nassau Community College. And the Hempstead Plains, once as vast a natural resource in Nassau as the Pine Barrens are in Suffolk, hang on to a few dwindling acres in and around Eisenhower Park.
Still, the Red goes on, only now with a view of office buildings and a TGI Friday's.
Originally it was part of the Salisbury Golf Club, a facility dubbed the "Sports Center of the World" in its prime. Twelve years after it was built in 1914, the course hosted a PGA Championship won by Walter Hagen. Salisbury went under during the Depression Era, but its #4 course survived and eventually became the Red Course at the publicly owned Eisenhower Park.
One of the more interesting aspects of the Red Course is the history found not in withering texts, but right there in plain sight within its borders. The fourth is a 455-yard dogleg left and the course's #1 handicap hole. A drive of 250 yards down the center of the fairway still leaves a long, difficult shot into the green.
For a relatively brief period, however, a second fairway stretched straight out from the tee -- through the bend of the dogleg -- and led to an alternate green. Two bunkers narrowed the fairway ahead of the putting surface. A 2005 scorecard lists the alternate hole as "4A" with the exact same yardage as the doglegged "4."
But thanks to the magic of aerial imagery, it's clear that this extension was only a temporary member of the course layout. It did not exist as late as the 1960s. And today the green sits unused, taken out of play in recent years and resting idly between the tees of #3 and #5. The two large traps in the neck have been filled in and small trees now stand where the alternate fairway veered off at the turn (pictured above, with the lost green in the distance). In the Red's 100-year lifespan, hole "4A" lasted no more than 40.
Putt out two holes later on #6 and take note of another "ghost" green. Partially hidden behind trees in the left rough, a tiny putting surface -- a third of the size of #6 green and barely 10 yards wide, if that -- is typically ignored. Perhaps an old practice green to occupy waiting golfers on the seventh tee?
Another aerial search reveals a different story. Like #4A, this green once offered a straighter alternative to a doglegged hole. It appears this green was still in play as recently as the mid-1990s. By 2000, its two side bunkers remained, but the presence of new trees scattered in the approach indicates that the surface was no longer in the rotation. Six years later, more trees covered any traces of an alternate hole routing and eventually the traps were grassed over.
But there's more to the green's past. Currently, #6 is a 430-yard par-4 that bends to the right. A 1966 aerial, however, shows #6 in its former glory -- a straight hole culminating with this diminutive and now-forgotten green. The area where today's #6 green resides was nothing but empty space. In the photo above, the old surface basks in the sun a short pitch to the left of its replacement.
Does anyone know more about the coming and going of the Red's 4A and its "original" 6?
Now if only the park would discontinue the Red's hideous, alternate #2 hole (a product of the last 15 years, by the way).
For more information on the history of Eisenhower/Salisbury and Long Island courses in general, pick up a copy of "America's Linksland: A Century of Long Island Golf" by William Quirin. Aerial imagery provided by Google Earth and www.HistoricAerials.com.
For a detailed look at Eisenhower Red, check out the course flyover.
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