Golf on Long Island

Spy Ring Golf Club in Setauket working its way toward a soft opening this fall

Gone are the sounds of hammering construction and the roar of heavy machinery.  In their place, in a pristine golf and residential complex in Setauket, are the soft whispers of fairway sprinklers and quiet music drifting from an apartment terrace. 

Soon those sounds will be joined by the echoes of a purely struck iron and the cheers from a well-deserved par.

Spy Ring Golf Club, Long Island's newest public course and arguably the most ambitious public-golf project on the Island in a quarter century, is steadily progressing toward a soft opening this fall.  Designed by Tyler Rae, Spy Ring is a modern nine-hole course featuring big, uniquely contoured greens, hefty bunkers and a startling amount of elevation change.  The course plays around newly built Heatherwood residences on a property that for nearly 60 years was the site of Heatherwood Golf Club, an executive-length 18.

Jimmi Conway, the longtime golf director and now vice president of golf operations at both Spy Ring and Pine Hills in Manorville, says the Spy Ring team is taking the opening slow to make sure the grounds are fully prepared for the rigors of play.  Even though the course looks like a finished product, Conway and Heatherwood president Chris Capece say they have the luxury of time to let the course mature ahead of its unveiling to the public.

"We want to do this the right way," Conway says.  "We don't want the course to get beat up before it's ready."

Still, to the naked eye that sees nothing but smooth fairways, freshly cut rough and rippling greens, it's hard to put aside the urge to drop a few balls and give the course a test run.  The par-3 seventh is the looker, a 145-yard shot over a row of four surprisingly large sand traps.  Rae built "fun" greens with plenty of pinnable space, and here on #7, a front-right tongue and a rear plateau set up some very interesting pin positions. 

From #7 tee the entire back half of the course is in view -- the downhill par-3 fifth, the punchbowl-style green on #6, the elevated green on #8 and the down-then-up par-5 closer.  Many of the greens feature broad entrances that allow for running and bounding approaches, a rarity for Long Island publics.  And the sandy base will allow the course to play firm.

A small patio overlooks the first tee and a huge, sloped practice green.  A practice bunker is nearby as well.  Conway loves the intimacy of the pro-shop setup, where he's close enough to the first tee to applaud someone who opens their day with a perfect drive -- or razz someone who needs to take an early mulligan.  Inside, the pro shop offers a small collection of Spy Ring apparel and features a black-and-white mural depicting Heatherwood's original grand opening in the early 1960s.

As for the site's 2023 opening, growing conditions this summer and early fall will ultimately determine when the course sends its first groups out for limited play.  As of yet there is no determination on green fees.

For more on Spy Ring and its design, check out our GOLI feature from last May:
Coming Soon: Heritage Spy Ring GC, Long Island's first shot at the Sweetens Cove model

Bethpage prepping for 2023 season with Ryder Cup changes already taking shape

It won't take long for Bethpage golfers to catch a glimpse of something new when they return to the course for the first time in 2023.  One of the main offseason renovations at the park -- carried out with the 2025 Ryder Cup in mind -- took place right behind the clubhouse near the start of the Black Course.

It's a subtle change, but one that is designed to bolster the already raucous atmosphere at the Ryder Cup's start and finish.  A simple reshaping of the mounding between the first tee and 18th green has opened up the sight lines to allow the Black's future spectators to see every shot.

"The first tee at the Ryder Cup is one of the best experiences a golf fan can enjoy, and the crowd at Bethpage should be epic," says Andrew Wilson, Bethpage's longtime superintendent and director of agronomy.  "The work done means fans will be able to see the first tee and 18th green from every seat in the grandstand."

Whether or not that epic scene will include rolled-back golf balls and players on the LIV Tour...well, uhh, let's not get into that.

Local players will begin to see the offseason course work for themselves when Bethpage Green opens for 2023 play tomorrow, March 18, followed by the Red Course on April 1.  But for the most startling change of all, visitors will have to wait until the Black Course officially reopens on April 15.  That's when players will work their way toward the farthest reaches of the Black and find that one of its landmark hazards -- the overhanging oak tree right of #8 green -- is now a thing of the past.

Wilson says the tree was dying and unable to be salvaged, despite his crew's best efforts to save it.  "It had become a safety issue for players and employees," Wilson says.  "It was sad to see it go."

Its departure means the right side of the green can offer pin placements that simply weren't possible while the tree loomed overhead, another positive when looking ahead to Ryder Cup week.

Elsewhere on the Black Course, maintenance crews renovated about a dozen bunkers with new sod edging.  "That's no small undertaking considering the size of the Black's bunkers," Wilson says.

Crews completed similar sodding projects around sand traps and in areas with soil compaction on the Red and Green courses. 

Meanwhile the Blue and Yellow courses saw plenty of action over the winter, not from work crews, but from players.  The two courses have already hosted close to 10,000 rounds, Wilson says, thanks to mild temperatures and zero snowfall.  The staff has been able to do some minor renovation work amid all that play, though multiyear projects like the continued renovation of bunkers on Yellow #14 have been kept on hiatus until next offseason.

When players prepare to tee off on the Black Course next month, they'll also notice one other significant addition -- a new forward tee on Black's opener.  Wilson says the idea to add a forward tee came as a byproduct of the reshaping work done nearby.

"There's a good chance this new tee will be used during the Ryder Cup as well," Wilson says.

[PICTURED: TOP -- Newly reshaped grounds between #1 tee and #18 green on the Black Course.  BOTTOM -- The oak tree on Black #8, as seen during the 2019 PGA Championship.]

After long delay, X-Golf Westbury preparing for possible February debut

[UPDATE: X-Golf Westbury is scheduled to open March 10.]

Nassau County is about to get its first taste of the modern golf and entertainment experience that recently has popped up farther east in places like Holtsville, Patchogue and Commack.  And it will arrive in a spot that's no stranger to the metallic echoes of drivers smashing golf balls and the thuds of tee shots crashing into screens.

X-Golf Westbury will open within weeks at Samanea New York, formerly the Mall at the Source, in part of the space once occupied by Golf Galaxy.  It will be Long Island's second X-Golf location, following the opening of X-Golf Commack in June 2022.  The California-based franchise is known for its combination of technologically advanced golf simulators, on-site instruction and events, and casual food and drink service.

Once the fire marshal signs off on the Westbury site, owner Chris Sciocchetti says the new facility will be ready to open within days.  The latest target date is February 27.  "I don't care what the actual date is," Sciocchetti says. "I just hope it has a February on it."

It's been a long road from conception and planning to finally preparing eight high-tech hitting bays and a TV-topped bar for use by local golfers.  X-Golf Westbury was initially slated to open in November 2021, but with Samanea's rapid resurrection from ghost mall to indoor shopping and immersive-experience destination, X-Golf found itself caught up in an unforeseen morass of municipal red tape.  First it was sorting out the allotment of parking spaces, then it was a nine-month wait for approval of a variance for the golf facility itself.

Sciocchetti is confident the pandemic-fueled enthusiasm for both regular golf and the indoor variety will make the long buildup worthwhile.  During the pandemic, Sciocchetti spent two or three days each week playing the courses at Eisenhower Park and Bethpage.  He had visions of opening an indoor facility somewhere near his Merrick home, and the pandemic only accelerated his plans. 

"I've wanted to do this for a really long time," he says.

Visitors at X-Golf Westbury will find a row of hitting bays along a wall to their left, steps away from a bar that will turn out draft beer and light bites from at least one area pizzeria.  Other bays, all of which include TVs and tables, are set up in corners and on the opposite side of the bar.  Separating the two sides is a wall decorated with colorful golf-course artwork, Bethpage included, that Sciocchetti's wife Kathryn found on Etsy.  Also featured are neon and turf-clad X-Golf Westbury signs well-suited for Instagram posts.

X-Golf facilities are known for their state-of-the-art simulators that feature more than 50 golf courses and advanced innovations like automatic ball retrieval, personalized tee heights and adjustable ground slope.  The short-game technology also elevates the level of play in X-Golf bays, allowing players to chip and putt on virtual greens with accuracy.  Westbury will offer local in-house leagues and a schedule of national and regional competitions that are part of the X-Golf network.  (The franchise has locations in 32 states.)  Sciocchetti is working out the specifics for instruction and fittings as well.

Hourly rates range from $55 on weekday mornings and early afternoons to $75 on weekends. A full 18-hole round takes about 45 minutes to an hour per player.

After Samanea does its own marketing push to promote its new sites, Sciocchetti says most of his own promotion will be done on social media, much like Commack, Topgolf in Holtsville, Birdies in Patchogue and Simplay in Hauppauge, all of which are active and highly visible on Instagram and Facebook.  The Westbury site has already developed a following even while building permits still cover the front door.

"I get calls here every day asking when we are going to open," Sciocchetti says.

Rebranded Sandy Pond Links to reopen in March under new ownership

Riverhead's Sandy Pond Golf Course is taking a rare winter break this offseason, and when it reopens in March, it will do so with a new name, a modernized logo and an ownership group looking to blend the old with the new.  Brian Stark, one of the new controlling owners of the rebranded Sandy Pond Links, plans to restore some of the features he recalls from his youth, when the small par-3 course on Roanoke Avenue was in its infancy. 

And the way he sees it, one of the most effective ways to bring the course back to its roots is by reaching down and pulling them up.

"We've been in the ponds, removing the reeds from the ground instead of just cutting them back, so the water is clear like it used to be," says Stark, who worked at Sandy Pond while growing up nearby in the late '70s.  "When I was a kid, the third hole had a clear pond, and there were sand dunes and a big green up on the hill."

The 2023 season will be one of change at the course, including in the layout itself, the facilities and the amenities, but it will retain the quaint East End vibe it's been known for since it opened a half-century ago.

Previous owners Ken Weinstein and Chris Wahlers "built a great clientele," Stark says, since they took over operation of the course in 2012.  "They brought in leagues and outings, they have a few members.  There is a real religious following here."

On the course, much of the focus will be on expanding the greens to their original size.  "We're going to bring back the contours of the original greens," Stark says.  "You can still see areas where the contours were lost, and how the greens have shrunk significantly over time.  They used to have more character and pin positions." 

Stark, one of the original owners of the neighboring Long Island National Golf Club, also wants to reintroduce some of the course's original sand-dune features.  Sandy Pond was built out of an old sand quarry, after all.

The orientation of the course will change too, with the ninth hole flipping to the top of the scorecard as Sandy Pond Links' new opener.  (The other eight holes will move down a slot.)  That modification is being made to accommodate a new clubhouse to be built on the north side of the property near the current ninth tee.  Plans there include a simulator, an outdoor patio and beer and wine service.  Food trucks, a common sight at wineries and breweries in the Riverhead area, could eventually be part of the offerings as well.

Most noticeable on that end of the property will be the addition of a miniature golf course, which is currently pending approval by the Town of Riverhead.  Stark hopes it will be ready by the fall.

Even though the course's longtime shack (and its famous green-fee dropbox) will eventually become part of Sandy Pond's past, the new owners don't expect the facility to lose any of its charm.

"Complaints about golf always revolve around three things -- it's too hard, it takes too long and it's expensive," Stark says.  "Sandy Pond is none of those."

[PICTURED: Sandy Pond, as seen in 2014, following upgrades under previous ownership.]

The Rock Golf Club in Wading River turns private two months into its revival

The Rock came back to Wading River, and in a surprise move earlier this month, the club turned heel.

Just two months after its long-awaited reopening, The Rock Golf Club has slammed the door shut on the public players that it wooed back with promises of an all-inclusive member-for-a-day experience and elevated perks.  The course is fully private and will remain so beyond this season.  Golf director Bill Mackedon confirmed the course is no longer open to the public. 

Prospective members can join The Rock for a $25,000 initiation fee and $10,000 in annual dues starting in 2023.

The decision to make it a members-only facility, Mackedon told Golf On Long Island, was made after its July reopening.  Back in June, with the course preparing to welcome golfers again for the first time since October 2019, Mackedon said the club's goal was to provide a memorable experience "for the person who might only be able to get out and play a few times during the season, where everyone feels like they belong."

That spirit of belonging and inclusivity only lasted until Labor Day, however.  Then, players who called to book tee times were instead told the club was available only to members.

Given the optics and timing of such a drastic change of course, it seems more likely that public players -- some of whom spent several hundreds of dollars to play The Rock during its abbreviated summer season -- were simply used as beta testers before a planned decision to turn private.  Some players told Golf On Long Island they felt duped, especially since the course had been dropping hints of its return for well over a year.

In May 2021, new owner Chris Vene told the Riverhead News-Review that the concept for the rejuvenated course would be a club-level experience for those without the time to play a lot of golf or the means to afford membership costs.  "So you go to Great Rock and you're a member for the day," Vene said.

The majority of those who played the course this summer and were surveyed by Golf On Long Island praised its greens, which have long been the strength of The Rock's layout.  But many also agreed that the rest of the course remains in need of significant improvements, especially its bunkers and uneven tee boxes.  Others pointed to ongoing irrigation issues and limited amenities.  Recalling the problems that plagued Great Rock in its final seasons, some players suggested the course needs to take more time to address its underlying turf and maintenance issues.  "They need to close for another year," said one player who logged multiple rounds there even after the course turned private.  "It's basically a glorified municipal course right now."

Bill Scherer said he enjoyed his four rounds at The Rock this summer (at $75 per) and was glad it reopened since it's so close to his home in neighboring Shoreham.  "It plays the way it used to," he said.  "I was disappointed when they told me I could no longer play."

The restaurant, Pulcinella's On The Green, remains open to the public.

For more on Great Rock's closure, sale and subsequent reopening as The Rock, see GOLI's write-up from this past June.

[PICTURED: The Rock's downhill ninth prior to the course's 2022 opening.]

New York's first X-Golf indoor facility set to open in Commack next week

Last fall Geoffrey Schwartz led a tour through an empty, white-walled shell deep inside a Commack strip mall, pointing to where he planned to set up golf simulators, a full bar and a mezzanine for events.  Six months and a full transformation later, the space -- previously part of a closed Toys 'R' Us -- is filled with two rows of hitting bays, clusters of cozy lounge furniture and the high hopes of Long Island's latest cutting-edge addition to the local golf scene.  X-Golf Commack, the first New York location for the California-based franchise, will officially open to Long Island golfers next week.

Its arrival follows other combined-experience golf venues that have debuted on Long Island in the past year, most notably Topgolf in Holtsville last summer.  Birdies, a golf and cocktail bar in Patchogue, opened in February.  X-Golf's appeal is in its state-of-the-art simulator technology, which features advanced innovations like automated ball retrieval, personalized tee heights and adjustable ground slope.

The Commack location has nine bays, including one exclusively for lessons and two for private parties.  But what sets his venue apart, Schwartz says, is the VIP-style treatment players can expect when they step inside.

"We want everyone to feel welcome when they come in," Schwartz says.  "They'll check in at the pro shop, leave their bag and have a drink at the bar or sit and relax.  We'll set up their bags for them so they're ready to warm up and start playing."

Unlike in other simulators, players are free to admire their shots without having to chase their ball and re-tee for themselves or a playing partner.  X-Golf's retrieval system does the work -- balls funnel into a slot in front of the tee while a new one pops up at the kick of a button.  Tees automatically adjust to each player's preferred height, and when part of a league, player preferences and handicaps are maintained in the X-Golf system.

The biggest game-changer, Schwartz says, is X-Golf's superior short-game technology.  Sensors around the tee pick up ball path and speed and translate chips and putts onto the virtual green with unprecedented accuracy.  "Putting is usually an afterthought in most simulators," Schwartz says.  "But nobody playing in a league wants to just guess at how to putt and take gimmes from eight feet."

X-Golf's network of 50-plus locations around the country (and growing, including a Westbury venue due to open later this year) allows local players to participate in national and regional competitions and tournaments, in addition to in-house leagues.  Paige Spiranac is the company's most notable brand ambassador, though a hefty appearance fee might prevent a visit to Commack in the near future.  ("Maybe one day," Schwartz says.)

Phil Barnhart, previously the pro at Willow Creek in Mount Sinai, will be on site for lessons and instruction.

Outside the hitting bays, a U-shaped bar will turn out beer, cocktails and small bites like wings, wraps and chicken fingers.  A second-level mezzanine offers lounge space and a private room for corporate meetings and events.  To reach it all, visitors first walk down a lengthy corridor lined with photos of famous players and murals depicting courses from around the world.  Even before its official opening, the long hallway has drawn curious strip-mall shoppers given X-Golf's convenient location amid heavy foot traffic from the adjacent Whole Foods, Harbor Freight and Five Below.

Hourly rates range from $49 on weekday mornings and early afternoons to $69 on weekends. A full 18-hole round takes about 45 minutes to an hour per player.  The list of nearly 50 courses -- with more to come -- includes a selection of highly regarded American classics (yes, Bethpage Black is there) and several lesser-known Asian layouts.

Reservations can be made at the X-Golf Commack website.  Follow X-Golf's website and social media accounts for information about an official grand-opening date.

Coming Soon: Heritage Spy Ring GC, Long Island's first shot at the Sweetens Cove model

Looking out from a flat, elevated square marked with dusty footprints, Jimmi Conway points toward a slender oasis in an expanse of tire-tracked sand, the pings of a bustling construction site echoing in the background.  Four bunkers stand in line from left to right, their wavy edges framed by strips of green sod.

"I can see this becoming the signature hole," Conway says.  "Picture what this will look like when it's all grown in."

Off to the right are the bare bones of a tumbling fairway, though all that's recognizable to the unfamiliar eye, at the moment, are three more sodded bunkers leading the way to a future green.

This square, possibly sometime next year, will be one of nine tee boxes at Heritage Spy Ring Golf Club in Setauket, soon to be the newest public course on Long Island and arguably the most ambitious public-golf project since Harbor Links was built on a reclaimed Port Washington sand mine nearly a quarter-century ago.  The tee will start players on the 145-yard seventh, and the downhill fairway will be the closer, the dogleg par-5 ninth.  Conway expects the high quality and appeal of these holes will leave Spy Ring's visitors counting down the days -- or maybe minutes -- until their next go-around.

Spy Ring, part of the newest residential development from Commack-based Heatherwood Luxury Rentals, is tentatively scheduled to debut in the second half of 2023 on the grounds of the former Heatherwood Golf Course.  Named as an homage to the Culper Ring and the Setauket area's prominent role in covert ops during the American Revolution, it will be a full-length nine that can be stretched as long as 3,300 yards. 

For many of its nearly 60 years, Heatherwood filled a niche as Long Island's only 18-hole executive course.  The plan is for Spy Ring to also fill its own local niche -- that of a modern, fun-forward nine-hole destination on par with others that have attracted design enthusiasts and curious golfers to places like rural Tennessee and suburban Florida.  There, imaginative architects took spent or outdated golf courses and spun them into darlings of the public-golf world with bold features, strategic design and a streamlined building process.  Conway and Heatherwood president Christopher Capece think they've captured the same formula on the north shore of Suffolk County.

"This has a chance to be something special and unique for Long Island," Capece says.  "I think this is going to be up on the same level with Sweetens Cove."

Tyler Rae is the man behind Spy Ring's design.  Though young as far as golf architects go, Rae has a wealth of experience that includes work alongside Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw (known locally for Friar's Head and East Hampton, of course), as well as Ron Prichard, Keith Foster and other acclaimed figures in the architecture field.  His resume is a laundry list of restorations and renovations of Golden Age courses, heavy on Donald Ross classics, with some Flynns, Raynors and Tillinghasts thrown in as well.  Spy Ring is one of his first solo designs, and he approached it with the heightened standards of Long Island golf in mind.

"Golf intellect is very high on Long Island," he says.  "You can't just come in with Mickey Mouse bunkers and flat greens and expect to have success.  Especially with a course like St. George's right down the street."

The enthusiasm for the project is hard to miss.  Conway, the longtime director and general manager at both Pine Hills in Manorville and the Heatherwood course, says working on Spy Ring has provided a jolt of energy.  Leading a walking tour on a sunny spring morning, Conway pauses to admire one of Rae's greenside bunkers at the par-3 fifth.  "Sometimes you walk around here and wish you could just spend the day with a bucket of balls," he says.  Capece stops on top of another perch to take in scenic views of rolling fairways and point out how the residences will blend into the course's background.  All in the group rave about Rae's use of open approaches, contoured greens and run-off areas.

For Rae, designing the golf course he envisioned and maneuvering it around the shared property was a challenge.  Initially he considered making the course a reversible nine, but that idea was scrapped over logistical concerns.  He opted to go with a clockwise routing that begins on the flattest part of the site, a "handshake," he describes, to ease players into the round.  Then Spy Ring "gets wild," beginning at #3, a straight, downhill par-5.  Conway says the third tee is "where the course really starts," kicking off a steady build of interest and excitement with each hole.

Pandemic-related delays turned out to benefit the construction process.  Rae and his team of builders had the time to personally shape every feature on the course to their exact specifications, so project costs remained low, a source of pride for the designer.  The crew also stripped off all the topsoil from the site, leaving behind nothing but sand.  ("Boy, it's going to be freakin' dry," Rae says with a laugh.)  The course will be seeded with turfgrass adapted for sandy, firm-and-fast golf, and a state-of-the-art irrigation system will keep everything in balance.  But golf balls will bound down fairways and roll over mounds, a rarity for Long Island publics.

"We set it up to be a turnkey firm-and-fast course," Rae says.  "Very easy to maintain."

On the greens, Rae's internal contouring and funneling leave surfaces that will be fun without going over the top, unique but with enough restraint to make them appear as natural parts of the landscape.  The green on #6, he says, is inspired somewhat by Seth Raynor's famous punchbowl at Fishers Island.  The seventh has elements of a volcano par-3, a hole type often associated with Ross.

"There's a ton of variety in the greens, and plenty of pinnable space," he says.  "Each one can play really easy or really hard." 

To the experienced Long Island public player, Spy Ring might bring back memories of Gil Hanse's now-departed Tallgrass Golf Course in Shoreham, particularly the openness of the entire property and the creative introduction of elevation to a largely flat site (in Tallgrass's case, a former sod farm).  Some might look at the bunkering on the par-5 ninth and draw parallels to #13 on Bethpage Black, where a center trap is farther from the green than it appears from afar.

Whatever comparisons and thoughts players have in mind when they walk off that ninth hole, Rae simply hopes fun is at the forefront. 

"I want people to come off the course saying, 'I enjoyed those nine holes, and I can't wait to play them again.'"

[PICTURED -- TOP RIGHT: View from the par-3 seventh tee; TOP LEFT: The par-5 ninth tumbles downhill before turning left for the final approach; BOTTOM RIGHT: After a flat start, Spy Ring brings elevation change into the mix starting at the downhill par-5 third; BOTTOM LEFT: The last of three fairway traps is farther from the green than it appears on the par-5 ninth.  The green is located near the trees at center.]

Resurrecting long-lost Lido golf -- the Lido Springs Par-3 course

Turns out it's true.

Down in Lido Beach, a small oceanfront community that plays a giant role in golf history, there is an old, lost golf course, after all.  It's right next door to the present-day Lido Golf Course, and its features, drawn up by one of Long Island's most influential golf builders, remain almost fully intact.  One putting green is split by a knob in its back half, another sits with rimmed edges.  Raised tees, buried beneath a tangle of tree branches and weeds, rest amid overgrown hazards and muddy ponds, waiting to be found.

No, this isn't the glorious hallucination of the most ardent Lido Club enthusiast.  Plenty of golf historians have studied those hallowed grounds, and some have even walked the streets and Lido Beach dunes, knowing they'll never stumble across some trace of the famous pre-World War II masterpiece.  This other course, well, nobody's trying to find it.  And if they are, they better be toting bug spray.

No, this is the story of Lido Springs, a short-lived par-3 course that came and went, following dozens of other little-known area golf courses that also came and went, and made a few memories along the way.  It was lit up for night play and pitched side attractions like mini golf and a game room -- not exactly the type of place commemorated in club histories or sepia-toned coffee-table books.  Yet there's some history worth exploring, and for now it holds a very unique distinction in Long Island golf history.  Lido Springs is likely the only instance of a long-gone local golf course sitting untouched, undeveloped, right out there among all of Long Island's hustle and bustle.

And thanks to modern technology, plus help from one of the key figures involved in next year's resurrection of that other lost Lido course, we can see Lido Springs today, down to the finest detail, as if unobstructed by 40 years of physical neglect.

+  +  +  +  +  +

When Lido Springs opened in the summer of 1963, the big Robert Trent Jones layout next door -- today's municipal Lido course -- was just a few seasons old.  And it had been only two decades since the famed original, C.B. Macdonald's Lido Club, was repurposed for military use in the early years of World War II.  That renowned course was to the west.  Lido Springs, on the other hand, played along Lido's eastern flank, its nine short par-3s wedged into a little triangular parcel dotted with five ponds.

"New Golf Course Opens at Lido," read the headline in The Leader, a Freeport newspaper, on July 11.  "Golf pros of the Nassau County clubs, as well as many other luminaries of the golf world were present at the opening," the article said.

John Brennan, a writer who chronicled the development and construction of Long Island's golf courses for various publications in the 1950s and '60s, indicated in one of his "Off the Fairway" columns that the new Lido Springs was built as an annex to RTJ's neighboring 18.  "Lidoites feel the addition of the short course will help take some of the load from the big course, with some of the older men members ... being detoured to the par-three layout," he wrote prior to its opening.

Players could enjoy a round well after sundown thanks to the "newest and finest daylight illumination on Long Island," according to the Leader.  Advertisements that ran in Newsday highlighted night golf as a selling point, and the course, at least in its early years, was open until midnight.  Rounds after dark were a novelty, and many who played Lido Springs fondly recall them.  Some just remember swatting the gnats and mosquitoes.

"It was so well lit, you saw the ball all the way up in the air and down to the green," says Jeffrey Bernstein, who moved from Brooklyn to Atlantic Beach in 1966.  Summers for Bernstein included trips to the driving range on the south side of Lido Boulevard, and eventually nine holes at Lido Springs.  He would grab one or two clubs and a putter and bike with friends from one end of the barrier island to the other.  Sometimes they'd leave the bikes home and hitchhike to the course instead.

Other elements set Lido Springs apart from the typical pitch-and-putt course.  It was initially planned as a semi-private club with memberships, tee times and an on-site pro.  Most notably, the design of its nine short holes was credited to William Mitchell, the golf course designer whose frequent work in the 1960s and early 1970s altered Long Island's golf landscape the same way Macdonald, Seth Raynor, Devereux Emmet and others left their marks in the early 20th century.

By July 1963, Long Island's second golf building boom was already well underway, and Mitchell played a big part.  His course at Pine Hollow Country Club in 1955 was the first to be built in the region since the end of the Depression and ensuing war years.  When a dozen new courses opened locally in 1961 and 1962, Mitchell's hand was on at least two of them -- Old Westbury and Woodcrest.  Mitchell would come to be known as golf's "public defender" -- he felt strongly about designing courses public players could take pride in, with features that were fair to the average high-handicapper.  He was a proponent of executive-length courses for their smaller demand on time and land use, and his goal was to eventually build a women's golf course on Long Island.  (Plans had already been drawn when Mitchell passed away in the early '70s.)

It's hard to know exactly how much time and energy Mitchell invested in the Lido Springs layout (his 18-hole course at Noyac in Sag Harbor opened the same year), but it certainly incorporated many of his design principles.  Greens featured some interesting contours, though nothing too "gimmicky," as he described movement that could potentially penalize good shots and reward bad ones.  For the less-skilled player, bunkers were in full view, mostly fronting greens.  ("I don't like to hide a trap," he often said.)  A series of small ponds came into play on all but two or three holes.  As far as time and land use, the nine holes took up less than ten acres and likely no more than an hour to play.

"It was a real golf course, just scaled way down," says Rob Koff, a lifelong area resident who recalls many night rounds there, complete with burgers and fries at the snack bar.  "The greens were legitimate, and the fairway areas were kept in great shape."

"They took care of it," Bernstein says.  "It was in better condition than Lido next door." 

Beyond the initial grand opening, and some newspaper advertisements that ran through the '60s and '70s, there's not much else that officially documents the course's 20-year run, which ended with its abandonment sometime in the early '80s.  It's not mentioned in any profiles or retrospectives about Mitchell's design career, and there are no reports of its closure.  Yet signs of it are still as clear as day to anyone driving down Lido Boulevard or up the 12th fairway at the current Lido course.  The light poles that illuminated so many summer nights and brightened so many memories still stand tall and slightly crooked above the overgrowth.  One that towered over the ninth green is just steps from the boulevard, not far from the rusted remnants of a chain-link fence that separated the course from the parking lot.

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That's the fascinating thing about Lido Springs.  It's still there, waiting to be found.

All Peter Flory needed was an aerial photo and some public data to bring Lido Springs back to life.  Followers of Lido golf history might recognize the name -- Flory, a Chicago-area golfer who counts digitally reconstructing lost golf courses as a hobby, is serving as an advisor for the Lido Club restoration at Sand Valley in Wisconsin.  He spent three years meticulously generating incredibly detailed renderings of the Lido Club by piecing together clues from aerial photos, ground-level images and written works, then posted them on Golf Club Atlas to be studied and scrutinized by fellow historians and designers.  His work drew the attention of Tom Doak, then Sand Valley's Mike Keiser, who used his images to pitch a restored Lido to prospective members.  That highly anticipated course is scheduled to open in 2023.

Resurrecting Lido Springs took Flory about two days.  An inquiry at the Long Beach Historical Society found its way to Flory, by now established as a trusted Lido Beach golf-architecture historian.  Using archived and current aerial images, he was able to quickly estimate and sketch the location of tees and greens, and publicly available LiDAR data allowed him to paint the picture.  The precise surface elevation data not only revealed that all but one green remain on the ground at Lido Springs, it also pulled up all of their ridges and slopes.  Once plugged into his golf-design software, the LiDAR exposed the surface as if it was bare ground with no overgrowth.  Flory used his judgment to flesh out rough and short grass around the holes, but the greens needed no manipulation. 

"The contours that you're seeing on the image are actually there on the ground," Flory says.

So we know now that the first hole was around 80 yards, give or take a few by tee placement, with a pond short left.  "There's a very cool pocket on the right side of the green," Flory says.  Only three of the holes went beyond 100 yards.  One of them, the fourth, had ponds long and right, and a front bunker with a raised lip.  The 121-yard ninth required a pond carry to a green with a back-half knob and raised shoulders.  By the looks of it, misfires there could easily find themselves lost onto Lido Boulevard.

With the three-dimensional model finished, Flory can make Lido Springs playable on a gaming PC, PlayStation, XBox and even some golf simulators.  It's something Flory did with his Lido Club renderings, complete with his digital self decked out in vintage golfwear, hickory clubs in hand.

As far as playing it again outside under the Lido Beach sun (or stars), technically it's not that far-fetched.  Anyone with a few million dollars handy and the stomach for a battle with the Town of Hempstead or Nassau County could conceivably resurrect the course in real life.  The property has been up for sale for years and is zoned to allow municipal recreation.

Bernstein thinks of the course every time he walks the fairway of the adjacent 12th hole at Lido.  Just a few paces away, on the other side of a fence, Bernstein once stood on a raised tee, looking across the entire Lido Springs course lit up in full view from one end to the other.

"You saw fathers and sons, groups of friends, kids with six-packs," he says.  "People from all walks of life out there just having a lot of fun."

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[PICTURED (click to enlarge): TOP -- Rendering of Lido Springs #1; MIDDLE -- Advertisements printed in Newsday in May and September 1966.  The course advertised in the paper throughout the '60s and '70s and typically promoted night golf; MIDDLE RIGHT -- Aerial photo of Lido Springs, the triangular property at center, as seen in 1966.  Lido Golf Course is to the left, and the Lido Beach Nike missile base is seen to the right; BOTTOM RIGHT -- The full Lido Springs routing, as interpreted using public LiDAR data.  All greens remain intact on the site except #2.  The rendering of #9 shows a bunkerless green with raised shoulders and a knob at back center.  Lido Boulevard was located directly behind the hole.]

The digital renderings published here are the intellectual property of Peter Flory.

For more reading on Lido golf history, see previous Golf On Long Island entries below:

• The Golfer's Journal podcast and magazine piece examine past, present and future of Lido-inspired golf
• Lido Golf Club, famed Macdonald masterpiece, to be recreated in Wisconsin
• A brief look back at the original Lido Golf Club in its "centennial" season
• Street Names: The Ghosts of Long Island Golf's Past, Part 2 (Lido Club)
• Original Lido Club featured on Golf Channel, golf history podcast
• Newsday slideshow features 11 places that were formerly golf courses
• Closer Look: Lido Golf Club #16

The Golfer's Journal podcast and magazine piece examine past, present and future of Lido-inspired golf

Lido Beach golf both past and present, as well as local, national and even international, is the subject of the most recent podcast just published this month by The Golfer's Journal and narrated by New York sports and golf writer Brett Cyrgalis.

If none of that seems to make much sense and the connection between South Shore muni golf and international golf design is a bit unclear, well, you have some interesting reading to do for Long Island golf history class.

The Golfer's Journal podcast focuses on the creation and disappearance of the short-lived Lido Golf Club -- considered to be one of the great architectural masterpieces in golf history -- and how it inspired three new Lidos, two of which are currently being built by renowned designers in Wisconsin and Thailand.  It is a companion piece to Cyrgalis's recent Journal feature entitled "The Hard Truth About Lido," in which the writer not only recalls many rounds played on today's local Lido but also describes in vivid detail a walk through the nearby Lido Beach dunes where the original C.B. Macdonald course stood for just two-plus decades.

Cyrgalis talks Lido golf on the podcast with Gil Hanse and Brian Schneider.  Hanse calls the original Lido a "mythical golf course, like Atlantis," one that he and Tom Doak often discussed when envisioning what they could possibly craft one day from a flat piece of land.  His soon-to-open Ballyshear Golf Links in Thailand is "a tribute" to Lido, he says, complete with its distinctive Macdonald template holes, and slight variations to the original's dimensions and routing. 

Meanwhile, at the Sand Valley Golf Resort in Wisconsin, Doak and Schneider of Renaissance Golf Design are in the midst of a full-scale Lido restoration.  With the help of photography and digital recreations of the course, Renaissance is duplicating every undulation of the original down to the yard.  "Macdonald is the architect of this project," Schneider says, "and we're trying as hard as we can to interpret his wishes and his design."  The course is scheduled to open in 2023.

And of course, there's Lido, the Town of Hempstead muni.  The course is a conundrum, and Cyrgalis explores it in greater detail in the magazine piece.  For every sunny recollection of waterside scenery along Reynolds Channel there is a local golfer's lament about overwhelming wind, muddy conditions or declining facilities.  Cyrgalis calls Lido "a joy in the winter" when the wind and hardened turf often make it play fast and firm like a true links, but admits that in the past "all I did was complain about goose shit and slow greens."  And though the Lido logo includes the year 1914 -- the start date of the original's construction -- there is no link between modern Lido and the "white whale" of golf course history. 

"It took a while before I cared enough to find out about the history," Cyrgalis writes.  "The sign out front reads '1914,' but that is a lie."

The Lido podcast is available for streaming and download on The Golfer's Journal website.  The magazine feature can be accessed with a Journal subscription.  For more reading on Lido, see previous Golf On Long Island entries below:

• Lido Golf Club, famed Macdonald masterpiece, to be recreated in Wisconsin
• A brief look back at the original Lido Golf Club in its "centennial" season
• Street Names: The Ghosts of Long Island Golf's Past, Part 2 (Lido Club)
• Original Lido Club featured on Golf Channel, golf history podcast
• Newsday slideshow features 11 places that were formerly golf courses
• Closer Look: Lido Golf Club #16

New book by Tillinghast biographer credits Burbeck as one of the "geniuses" behind Bethpage

Phil Young traces his love for the golf courses at Bethpage State Park to his early rounds as a teenager in the late 1960s, first on the Blue Course, then the famed Black.  Like plenty that came before him and many more after, he was first staggered by the Black while looking through the trees beside #3 green out toward the distant glacier bunker on #4.  (It was this same view that motivated the USGA's David Fay to fight for the Black Course to host a U.S. Open.)  From that moment, Young was not only an intense Bethpage Black enthusiast but also a devoted follower of course designer A.W. Tillinghast.

So when Golf Digest during the lead-up to the 2002 U.S. Open published a feature by senior writer Ron Whitten that reassigned Tillinghast's Bethpage Black design credit to unknown park superintendent Joseph Burbeck, it inspired instant debate and research in the growing golf course architecture field and upended what many Tillinghast disciples, including Young, believed to be true.

In his latest book, "Bethpage State Park and the Three Geniuses Who Created It," Young elevates Burbeck to lofty heights beside Tillinghast and Robert Moses as one of the indispensable founders of the enormous park, golf complex and Depression-era public works project.  Burbeck was responsible for the creation of the park, Young says, a "massive" task for someone who had to satisfy the powerful Moses and a panel of influential government officials.

"The fact that he could bring that building project to completion in two years, that alone puts him at the top of the top," Young says. 

The hardcover book -- Young's third release devoted to Bethpage and one of many chronicling Tillinghast's life and design career -- includes a chapter outlining Burbeck's many responsibilities in transforming the 1,300-acre Benjamin Yoakum estate in Farmingdale into a vast New York State-owned recreation hub.  Aside from answering to Moses and the Long Island State Parks Commission, Burbeck was tasked with, among other things, processing hundreds of federal relief workers, overseeing sports, course building and a caddy program, and supervising clubhouse construction and all park infrastructure.

"Burbeck had to run two offices," Young says.  "One to maintain the records for federal and state government, and another to run all operations for the park."

What the Tillinghast biographer and historian for the Tillinghast Association does not list among Burbeck's many accomplishments, still, are the designs of the Black, Blue and Red golf courses.  Design credits for those remain with Tillinghast.

Young makes his case over 80 pages that balance excerpts from newspapers and golf magazines with some personal anecdotes, all weaved between full-page photos and sketches.  Chapters chronicle the conception of the park (for which Moses earns his title of "genius"), descriptions of the courses and the "grand" golf exhibitions hosted in the 1930s and '40s.  The headliners, though, are the chapters devoted to Tillinghast's and Burbeck's intertwined roles during development of the golf courses and completion of the park as a whole.

Among the new evidence Young introduces here is a state employment card that lists the exact dates Tillinghast was on Bethpage grounds offering his services as "consulting architect."  The government document refutes previous claims, including in Whitten's piece, that Tillinghast signed onto the job for a maximum of 15 days.  In fact, he was paid for nearly double that time, and in Young's estimation, the dates line up with the routing, shaping and grow-in of golf courses built at a rapid pace by hundreds of relief workers.

Young also recounts a story first told in his 2004 book, "Golf's Finest Hour: The Open at Bethpage Black."  Just weeks ahead of the 2002 Open, professional golfer and NBC commentator Roger Maltbie stood on the Black's fifth green and made his own contribution to the debate.  "I can tell you one thing for certain," Maltbie declared.  "No one named Burbeck ever designed that hole."

Who did he say that to?  Phil Young, eyewitness to a foursome of Maltbie and three Bethpage regulars playing a taped round for part of the Open broadcast.

ORIGIN OF THE TILLY-BURBECK DEBATE

For nearly 70 years, three of the four "original" Bethpage courses were tied to Tillinghast without dispute.  The new park absorbed the existing Lenox Hills Golf Club, later the Green Course, in 1932, then added his Red, Blue and Black in 1935 and 1936.  A month shy of the highly anticipated, publicly hosted 2002 Open at Bethpage Black, Whitten turned that widely acknowledged history on its head with a finality that struck Young and other Tillinghast supporters.  "[Burbeck] did design Bethpage Black," Written wrote.  "The evidence always has been out there, if anyone had bothered to dig for it."

Whitten's revelation in Golf Digest hinged on the account of Joseph Burbeck Jr., who as a 4-year-old took part in the August 1935 clubhouse grand opening, his presence captured in photographs of a young boy unlocking the new structure with a ceremonial key.  The younger Burbeck told Whitten he recalled long days watching his father pore over blueprints and drafts in the family's home on the park grounds and visiting construction crews hard at work on the new courses.  His father's contributions had been overshadowed by a prominent figure who was barely on site, and so the name "Tillinghast" was not spoken in the Burbeck house, per mother's orders.

These memories formed the foundation of Whitten's argument, backed up by two supposedly smoking guns -- that the courses had already been laid out when Tillinghast was brought on as a 15-day consultant in December 1933, and that a 1959 "official history" published by the parks department says Bethpage's golf courses were "designed and constructed under the direction of Joseph H. Burbeck."

Of the two, the claim that design work had already been done prior to Tillinghast's arrival is the most significant, and would likely settle the debate once and for all.  But that claim is not adequately supported say Whitten's critics.  There is evidence that some pre-Tillinghast work might have been done on the Blue Course, but nobody knows precisely to what degree, and by whom.

Neither Tillinghast nor Burbeck were ever quoted with specific descriptions of what they performed or were hired to do on the golf courses.  Only Tillinghast comes close.  In 1937 he wrote, "It was my very good fortune to be selected by the Commission as its consultant course architect," then lauds Burbeck for his valuable support.  Similar statements appear elsewhere, all of which open the door to other questions that researchers have sought to answer.  What does "consultant" mean in the context of government-hired workers amid a global depression?  What does the design term "laid out" mean when relayed by a 1930s news writer?  Whose word carries more weight -- Tillinghast's, or a reporter speaking for Burbeck, as golf writer Lester Rice did in a 1937 feature?

And that's where the Tillinghast-Burbeck issue bogs down on a rough-covered slope shaped by hearsay, semantics and deconstructions of news reports and public-relations speak.  Quotes culled from articles, golf magazine features and promotional pieces, plus sketches, models and anything bearing Tilly penmanship, have formed for nearly two decades the collective Zapruder film of the golf course architecture field.  Both sides rely on historical evidence that by nature is open to interpretation.   

Will the debate be settled by the time Bethpage hosts the Ryder Cup in 2025?  "No," Young says.  There likely is no document hidden away somewhere that will provide closure.  (One set of design drawings supposedly exists in a government archive, though searches have turned up nothing.)  Even if drawings were found somewhere, chances are they wouldn't have Tillinghast's signature on them anyway, Young says, because that's not always how he worked. 

"This is all there is," according to Young.

BURBECK'S LEGACY

Over time Young's understanding of Burbeck's expansive role at Bethpage has led him to appreciate the longtime superintendent on a whole new level.  "The purpose of this book is to really show what Burbeck did," he says.

When Whitten's piece came out in 2002, Young quickly became the go-to source for a discussion and defense of Tillinghast.  He appeared on CNN, The Golf Channel and was approached by newspapers around the country.  After all, his book, "Golf for the People: Bethpage and the Black," had just been published earlier that spring.

Needless to say, the relationship between Young and Whitten has had a Koepka/DeChambeau vibe.  The two communicated briefly in the wake of Whitten's feature, but neither moved from their position.  Seven years later, Whitten reaffirmed his stance with a second Golf Digest piece in advance of the 2009 Open at Bethpage.  In it he references a 1936 New York Times article sent to him by a "Tillinghast proponent" -- Young -- that seemed to support him as the designer.  "Does that one item convince us that Tillinghast deserves primary credit for Bethpage Black?" Written wrote.  "Nope."  [Whitten did not answer a request for comment from Golf On Long Island.]

What Golf Digest did to Burbeck was a "major injustice," Young writes in his book.  "They ruined Burbeck's legacy.  He was never the 'villain' in this story until 2002."

Young's passion for both Tillinghast and Burbeck is evident in Three Geniuses.  So eager is the author, at times, to present his wealth of information that misidentified years or hole numbers occasionally sneak into the text.  But it doesn't detract from the research.

Though the case will still be open when the Ryder Cup tees off in 2025, perhaps something else will be done by then, something that Bethpage has already done for Tillinghast and Rees Jones.

"I hope the park comes up with a way to honor Burbeck," Young says.  Judging by his respect for Burbeck, it's likely Tillinghast would agree.

"Bethpage State Park and the Three Geniuses Who Created It" can be purchased online at the Golden Age Research website.

[PICTURED -- TOP: Joseph Burbeck; SECOND: A 1935 aerial of the Red, Blue and Black courses.  A polo match is in progress on what is currently Black's first hole.; THIRD: A.W. Tillinghast; FOURTH: Plaques dedicated to Tillinghast and Rees Jones near the Black's first tee.]