As you drive along the Sprain Parkway in Westchester, it’s hard to believe you’re only a 30-minute drive from Manhattan. All you see are trees, leaves and countryside. Then, when you happen upon the Sprain Lake and peer into the valley where the Sprain Lake Golf Course is carved in and around the water, you figure there’s got to be a special layout down there.
You exit, pay your greens fee and start playing at the Westchester County public course and, three holes in, the shoddy conditions of the tee boxes leave you wondering if you’re teeing it up somewhere in Beruit.
All that’s missing on the crusted dirt, on which you have to hammer your tee into the ground, are shards of shattered glass and maybe a few empty beer cans. Some of the sand traps are so eroded they look as if they haven’t been tended in years.
While this picture is admittedly the worst of Westchester public golf, the ugly truth is that it doesn’t get much prettier.
That’s staggering considering that affluent Westchester County boasts some of the finest golf courses in the entire world, such as Winged Foot and Quaker Ridge, and has nothing in the way of public golf that stands out for its quality or pristine condition.
Consider that Long Island has public facilities such as Bethpage, where the Black Course is the site of the 2002 U.S. Open, and Montauk Downs, which might be one of the 10 best public courses in the country.
Consider that, in New Jersey’s Monmouth County, you can play Hominy Hill, which is annually listed by the major golf magazines as one of best public courses in America. And in Morris County there’s Flanders Valley, which also has made those lists.
In Fairfield County, Conn., which borders Westchester, there are well-manicured facilities such as H. Smith Richardson in Fairfield and Bruce Memorial in Greenwich, to name a couple. Public golf simply doesn’t get better than Danbury’s Richter Park.
Then in Rockland County, there’s Spook Rock, one of the most highly rated public courses in the country.
In Westchester, there are 44 private golf clubs and just six public facilities, none of which stand out as even remotely special.
In defense of the Westchester County Parks Department, five county courses aren’t nearly enough to handle the immense load of golfers who roam their grounds daily.
The shame of it, though, is that the county, which based on the huge number of rounds played on its courses, makes scads of money from golf, simply does not pump enough money back into the courses.
There are a couple schools of thought here, according to a number of Westchester residents informally polled by The Post at the county courses. One prevailing theory is this: The courses already are so overbooked despite their poor condition, why does the county need to put money into them? The people are playing – and paying – anyway.
The fallout from this problem is that more and more public golfers are driving out of Westchester to play at other public facilities north of the county.
Upscale and comparatively expensive public courses like brand-new Centennial and Mansion Ridge, both of which are a little north of Westchester, are direct products of the lack of quality public golf in Westchester County.
“I find if you drive an hour away, you’ll play a four-hour round instead of five-plus at the Westchester County courses, the conditions are better and you’ll have a better experience out of the day,” Joe Mannari, a firefighter from Yonkers, said in between hitting balls at the Dunwoodie driving range last week. “I wouldn’t mind paying a few extra dollars for better conditions. It’s worth every dime to get a nice place in good condition.
“Considering the taxes being paid around here, there should be better courses,” Mannari went on. “But there never will be, because I guess they figure if you have the money you’re going to join a private club. Meanwhile, the rest of us are stuck with this.”
Ron Demkovich, the superintendent of golf courses for Westchester County Department of Parks and Recreation, knows what’s out there and he knows it can be better. His hands, though, are tied by what money is allocated to maintain the courses.
In Westchester, the money the golf courses make goes into a general fund and is dispersed from there to the county parks and pools and social services.
Tom Avezzano, the pro at Sprain Lake, said somewhat longingly, “If they could ever maintain this course in a manner where the tees were better, you’d need a traffic cop to handle the traffic flow coming in here.”
Added a Sprain Lake employee who asked not to be identified, “When you’re up on the parkway and you see the views you think there’s something special down here. Then you come in and play and you shake your head and say, ‘What happened here?'”
Demkovich proudly talked about how the Westchester County courses are all “operating in the black.” But why shouldn’t they be profitable? Thousands of people play them regardless of the condition.
“New York City got out of the golf-course business,” Demkovich reasoned. “American Golf took over management. I’ve been to them and they don’t show me too much.”
Fact is, though, as a person who’s played all of them, I can tell you that Westchester County’s public courses are, in no way, superior to the city courses.
Demkovich says the biggest problem is the volume.
“We’ve got 30,000 golfers in Westchester on the telephone reservation system,” he said. “You can accommodate 300 people per course on a given day, so you’re going to have a lot of disgruntled golfers. We’re at least three courses short of accommodating the volume. We are inundated. We cannot accommodate the public golfer in Westchester County with five courses.”
There is a property in Yorktown called Hudson Hills, which is an overgrown golf course that hasn’t been in use in years that the Westchester Parks Department is bidding to become a sixth county course.
As for the current state of Westchester County courses, Sal DeSantis, the Commissioner of Westchester Parks, said the most consistent problems have occurred in the tee areas, because the courses were built so long ago, the tee boxes are so small they can’t stand up to the volume of play.
“The demand for public golf is phenomenal,” he said. “I would love to have guaranteed four-hour rounds, but to have 10-minute tee times you’re not accommodating as many players. We’re in a Catch-22. You want to see the courses improve, but we have an obligation to get as many people on the courses as we can.
“So we have nine-minute tee times and the end result is longer play, but more people served. We’re making more money, but the courses take a little more abuse. To have it both ways is difficult in the public sector.
“We’re not blind,” DeSantis continued. “We like to compare ourselves to other courses.”
Meanwhile, as the serious Westchester public golfers are waiting for improvements, replacements and additions, Mannari, the Yonkers firefighter, has this suggestion: “My advice to the Westchester public golfer is to drive a little bit, pay a little extra money at one of the better courses up north like Grossingers, the Nevele or Concord.”