Greater Environmental Awareness on Golf Courses
By Carole Paquette
New York Times
Long Island’s newest golf courses are following practices
of decades ago and creating layouts that require less
irrigation and chemicals than the extensively manicured and
heavily fertilized courses that players have come to expect
in recent years, according to professionals in the
business.
The change is happening nationwide, they say, but it is
especially pronounced on Long Island because of the need to
protect the critical underground water supply and fragile
environment.
“There has been a trend in the golf industry, since the
mid-90’s, to go from standard parklike courses with
tree-lined fairways to the links style, which is more wide
open, similar to the old Scottish golf courses,” said Ray
Holohan, the president of the New York State Golf Course
Owners Association, a nonprofit trade group. “On Long
Island it is even more so because the courses are being
built on wide open properties of farmland that is over our
groundwater.”
There are 130 golf courses on Long Island, said Mr.
Holohan, who is an owner of the 40-year-old Middle Island
Country Club, a public 18-hole course in Middle Island.
Since 1992, 12 new public courses and eight private courses
have opened in Suffolk County, and more are under
construction.
The environmental consultant Jeffrey Seeman, owner of
Coastal Environmental in East Quogue, said that to ensure
town approval, golf course developers are incorporating
environmental components suggested by conservation groups
like Audubon International, a nonprofit group based in
Selkirk, N.Y., which is affiliated with the Audubon Society
of New York State. The group offers guidelines and services
to help new developments protect natural resources. New
Long Island golf courses that are using Audubon plans
include the public North Hempstead Harbor Links and private
Golf at the Bridge in Bridgehampton.
The Audubon plan “is an holistic approach,” Mr. Seeman
said. “It protects the environment” and “economically you
could reduce the operational costs by 30 percent if you
reduce the chemical requirements.”
Mr. Seeman, who has been the consultant for six Long Island
golf courses, said the plans’ components include “no-mow
zones” in wetland areas. Instead of mowing the grass right
up to the banks of a pond, for example, an area is left
natural within a six-foot-wide perimeter. This zone acts as
a sponge and absorbs chemicals that might have run off into
the water.
Another segment features a $30,000 concrete area, where
maintenance equipment is washed and chemical runoff is
collected in a small drain and is treated.
“The newer courses are taking these considerations into the
design,” Mr. Seeman said. “They are making a natural
landscape but with a scientific purpose.”
An important area of a golf course is the out-of-play
areas, like the woods and the high rough, he said. “If it
is more environmentally friendly, this area can combine
wildlife habitat and reduce the amount of turf chemicals
and irrigation required,” he said. “This involves putting
in mixes of fine fescue and wildflowers that don’t require
a lot of nutrients, have good drainage and are good nesting
areas for songbirds.”
An irrigation system would be designed that could be turned
off in those areas once they are established. Then only the
greens and fairways would be irrigated, “not the old
wall-to-wall way that was done not too long ago, or with
those older clubs that have not really begun to make the
changes,” said Mr. Seeman. “This is the old style: build it
in the land that was there,” he added.
MR. SEEMAN planned the program for Old Vines Golf Club,
which is being constructed on 125 acres of a former farm
off Reeves Avenue in Riverhead. Town approval for the
development was based on its using the Audubon plan, Mr.
Seeman said.
The development, which includes 75 housing units, will have
an 18-hole private golf course. A working vineyard will be
created as a satellite operation of a Cutchogue vineyard on
approximately four acres at the entrance to the club,
according to Bruce Barnet, a principal.
While not all builders use a full Audubon program, they are
more conscious of the environment and are taking measures
to preserve the groundwater, said Rick Jurgens, an owner of
the 38-year-old Spring Lake Golf Course, a 27-hole public
course in Middle Island. “There is a trend toward using
organic fertilizers that are free of pesticides,” he said.
“In the long run, being organic is cheaper as well as
healthier.”
Two 18-hole public courses in Riverhead – the Woods at
Cherry Creek, which opened last year, and Cherry Creek Golf
Links, which opened in 1996 – are being managed with
environmental programs, according to Vincent Sasso, the
owner with Charles Jurgens, of both courses.
“We had to be careful,” Mr. Sasso said. “We were only
permitted by the town to take down a certain number of
trees and when we created wetlands, we had to add the
particular plants that grow in them. We are on an organic
program, with mostly organic fertilizers and a little spray
in the woods. It’s hard to be organic at first, it takes a
while to build up. We are about 50 percent organic now,” he
said.
Cherry trees line a part of the road leading to the
clubhouse at Cherry Creek Golf Links, which was built on
166 acres of open land that had been potato and sod farms.
The Woods at Cherry Creek, which has a 4,500-square-foot
$1 million clubhouse with an upscale restaurant, is across
the road on 140 acres that is 80 percent woodland. It was
designed by the Riverhead surveyors Young & Young.
Rates at both courses are $35 for 18 holes on weekdays and
$60 on the weekends, according to Peter Quaresima, the
general manager.
A short distance east, on Main Road in Laurel, the $40
million Laurel Links Country Club, an 18-hole private club
on 226 acres, also opened last year. The developer, David
J. Saland, said that he went directly to the North Fork
Environmental Council, a nonprofit environmental group, and
asked for support before going to Riverhead’s planning
board for permits.
“I had learned my lesson,” he said, explaining that a
project he had proposed back in the 1980’s for 80 homes on
a 160-acre property in Aquebogue was defeated when the
environmental group won a fight to protect the property,
which had a kettle hole – a hollow formed by a melting
glacier.
LAUREL LINKS, which includes 29 building lots, was approved
with restrictions, he said. The number of house lots,
covering about an acre each, was reduced to 29 from 60, and
of the total property only 50 acres could be used for the
golf course. The rest is fescue and 40 acres of woodland,
“for the wildlife,” he said.
Mr. Saland added: “There were many concerns about chemicals
and how much of the woods we would use. We put four test
wells on the property to monitor the underground water. We
use as much organic as possible right now, but occasionally
we have to treat the turf when necessary. If you get a
fungus, you could lose a green in 48 hours if you don’t.”
Kelly Blake Moran, a golf course architect from Reading,
Pa., who builds courses throughout North and South America,
designed the Laurel Links course.
Currently, 13 houses are under construction and four of the
remaining lots are on the market for $440,000 each. The
3,000- to 5,000-square-foot New England-style houses are
priced at $1.2 million to $1.6 million, said Mr. Saland,
who owns Saland Real Estate in Jamesport.
A 14,000-square-foot, wood-shingled clubhouse is under
construction and is expected to be completed by spring.
There will be a restaurant, Olympic-sized outdoor pool and
two tennis courts.
The golf course, which is private, has two types of
membership plans. There are 325 full family memberships,
under which pay a $90,000 initiation fee, of which $70,000
is a bond that will be returned when they leave. “I needed
their money to buy the land,” Mr. Saland said.
Those members also pay an annual $6,000 family fee that
entitles them unlimited use of the golf course and all club
facilities.
With another plan, called a house membership, members pay a
nonrefundable $20,000 initiation fee and have full use of
the clubhouse, pool and tennis courts but limited golf
privileges.
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Posted by: Paul on October 08, 2003 at 22:57:17