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
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