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Sister courses Wind Watch in Hauppauge and Willow Creek Mount Sinai will host Thanksgiving shotgun outings this Thursday morning, November 26.
First to tee off is Willow Creek, where the shotgun start is scheduled for 8:00 a.m. The Wind Watch outing will tee off an hour later at 9 a.m. Both events are $69 per player and can be booked online.
For more on either golf course, visit the Wind Watch and Willow Creek flyovers.
Riverhead-area golfers can roll out of bed and onto the tee at Cherry Creek this Thanksgiving morning, with a shotgun start planned bright and early next week.
Cherry Creek's annual Turkey Shootout will begin at 8:00 a.m. next Thursday, November 26 on the Links Course, home of Long Island's only par-6. The outing includes hot breakfast and the opportunity to win raffles and prizes. Entry fee is $65 per player with cart and range balls.
Register for the Turkey Shootout by calling the Links at (631) 369-6500.
Those who prefer to stay in bed a little later can opt for the annual Black Friday Shootout at Pine Hills in nearby Manorville. Tee time is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on November 27. The $75 entry fee includes cart, range, contests and golf balls.
Call (631) 878-7103 to sign up (a cash deposit per player is required).
Not long after one "Tradition Unlike Any Other" at Augusta comes another one on Long Island -- Thanksgiving Day golf outings.
Timber Point will host its annual holiday scramble at 9:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning, November 26. Format is four-person scramble played over nine holes, with pro shop gift cards given to the top team and winners of closest-to-pin and longest-drive contests. (There will be no pre-round putting contest at this year's event because of crowding concerns.)
Entry fee is $50 per player. Players can register online through the Timber Point website.
Due to Covid, there will be no pre- or post-round refreshments available, so players are asked to bring their own food and beverages, if necessary.
Golf On Long Island's "Origins" series explores the history and development of those local golf courses whose backstory is a bit more unique than most. Stay tuned for more as the season progresses.
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At first glance there's not a whole lot that's noteworthy about the 1972 opening of Bergen Point Golf Course in West Babylon. It can be summed up pretty succinctly:
In the mid 1960s, Suffolk County announced plans to develop a series of public parks and outdoor recreation venues, including new golf courses in West Babylon, West Sayville and Riverhead. Across Long Island, the biggest course-building boom since the 1920s was underway, and dozens of public and private golf layouts had sprouted up since the turn of the decade. Suffolk's plan set the stage for a new wave of Long Island municipal golf courses. Its West Babylon course would be built on 168 boggy acres near Great South Bay; in West Sayville, the new muni would take over an old bayside estate, and the Riverhead site would be laid out over what was, way back when, an Indian Island duck farm.
By May 1968, West Sayville was ready to welcome Suffolk County residents and their guests. It was the design work of William Mitchell -- long known as golf's "public defender" -- and the following season, Mitchell's eighteen at Bergen Point was just about ready to go. And that's when the Bergen Point story diverges from the norm. Why did it take until 1972 for the course to open to the public?
You know that big treatment plant that separates Bergen Point from Great South Bay?
Around the same time Mitchell and building crews were putting the final touches on the county's new municipal golf facility, Suffolk's attention was focused less on contoured greens and more on construction of the taxpayer-funded sewage treatment plant right next door. The plant was going up along the water south of the course, with original plans calling for it to be partially built over the bay on landfill. Golf at Bergen Point would have to wait until the plant was complete.
But during construction, $10 million in cost overruns and a looming fight with conservationists turned the landfill part of the proposal sour. For the much lower price tag of $300,000, the county could simply extend the plant property away from the bay instead -- onto 30 acres already occupied by the new golf course.
So in 1971, Suffolk County paid that price -- more than half of the original $500,000 cost to build the new muni from scratch -- to modify a golf course that, before it ever opened for play, lost three of its southernmost holes and parts of others. If you've ever thought to yourself that the holes near the bay have a bit of an awkward feel, specifically the two sharp-turning dogleg par-5s, this late-stage redesign is likely the reason.
Bergen opened in 1972 with some added acreage on the north end, which today is the site of the course's driving range.
[PICTURED -- A map that ran alongside a Newsday article on January 16, 1971 with the headline, "Revised Sewer Plant Will Cut Golf Course." (Courtesy Newsday)]
OTHER POSTS IN THE "ORIGINS" SERIES:
Bay Park -- June 2019
Town of Oyster Bay -- March 2019
The Golf Club at Middle Bay -- January 2019
Wind Watch Golf & Country Club -- May 2018
[UPDATE: Bethpage Black will remain open an extra week until November 22, thanks to favorable weather conditions.]
Normally the sights and sounds of Augusta inspire the first rusty golf swings of a new season. In the bizarre golf year of 2020, Bethpage Black will shut down for the winter in the week following The Masters.
The last day to play the Black Course at Bethpage is Sunday, November 15, and if you want to get out on the Red Course, you have until Sunday, November 29. The Green Course will close at the end of play on November 29 as well.
Golf's pandemic-aided resurgence included a steep rise in play at Bethpage and its NYS Parks brethren at Montauk Downs and Sunken Meadow. Even with a choppy start to the season thanks to changing state health guidelines, total rounds at Bethpage were up 20% over last year, according to a Newsday report last month.
The Blue and Yellow courses will remain open through the winter. Call the park at (516) 249-0700 for updates on course availability during the offseason.
