Go play High Bridge Hills Golf Club. It’ll not only provide you a pleasurable golfing experience, but you can be part of the revitalization of a small town that not long ago was down on its luck.
To label this public golf course – located about 50 miles west of Manhattan – a heroic landmark in the community is not overstating the issue in this complex story involving a struggling town, a 145-acre parcel of open land and hungry housing developers.
In the case of High Bridge, N.J., a golf course saved the town.
Several years ago, when the piece of property that is now 18 holes of links-like golf course amid the rolling hills of Hunterdon County was mere farmland, Al Schweikert, the mayor of High Bridge, had a vision.
If he let the housing developers who were circling the place like vultures get their mitts on that land, there would be 300 to 600 townhouses built in a heartbeat and, subsequently, the demand for new schools to accommodate the 400 or so new children couldn’t be ignored.
What would that mean? An estimated $15 million to be spent on new schools by a municipality of barely 4,000.
That would have translated into a doubling of yearly taxes, or about $8,000 annually.
What would that mean? A sure mass exodus from town by residents.
And that would surely lead to the death of a small town once proudly propped up by Taylor-Wharton, the venerable steel and armaments firm that, until business fizzled out around the Vietnam War, was the second-oldest company in the U.S.
Taylor-Wharton, among its once-huge industry, provided steal shovels for the Panama Canal and made cannon balls for George Washington’s army.
Now, though, instead of being defined by Taylor-Wharton, the center of High Bridge’s universe is golf. The tiny borough has traded its steel shovels and cannon balls for 5-irons and Titleists.
All this, thanks to the vision of Schweikert, who fended off challengers from everywhere – not the least of whom came from naysayers within his own town – to turn this project into a living, money-making industry.
It’s projected that, once the loan debts are paid off after 2008, the course will net the town more than $2 million per year – more than the current yearly budget for the entire borough. Even while the debts are being paid off, the course is netting the town about $600,000 per year – a third of the yearly budget.
“The [golf project] went from costing the town money to make new schools and raising everyone’s taxes to bringing money to the town,” High Bridge Hills director of golf Jason Lenhart said. “Still, though, some people did not want to have the golf course here, because they were nervous it would fall flat on its face and end up costing the town even more money.
“There are not a lot of courses in this area and there was a lot of fear that this wouldn’t work. For a borough of under 4,000 people to take on such a big undertaking, spending $6 million to build a course, there was fear.
“To this date, though,” Lenhart went on, “I have heard no regrets.”
The Post had no regrets about playing High Bridge this past week, finding it a fun, affordable round of golf, and a place where the average guy can get on without tee-time hassles or inflated prices.
The course features a number of strong holes, including the 229-yard, par-8 8th hole over a steep, ball-swallowing chasm of a gully.
“The feature here is golf,” Lenhart said of the course, which is no-nonsense golf with no sprawling clubhouse or valet parking. “I want people to know if you pick up the phone and call here that you can play here.”
That’ll keep the greens fees reasonable ($48 with a cart on weekdays and $58 on weekends) and make the course playable for all, which is the goal.
It was all made possible by Schweikert, who makes his real living as a neuroscientist operating on Parkinson’s patients in an effort to find a cure for the mysterious disease.
This visionary who saved High Bridge with golf, by the way, didn’t even take up the game until last year and finds occasional ecstasy by periodically breaking 100.
“We still have people who are disbelievers; they are actually waiting for things to collapse and fail,” Schweikert said. “But I know that’s not going to happen.”