Rumors of Tallgrass' demise have been greatly exaggerated
(apologies to Mark Twain).
No kidding from the people who own and run Tallgrass Golf Course and Country Club, a public course in Shoreham. They have heard the talk sweeping through Long Island that they are closing soon, and they say it just isn't so.
Bruce Barnet, a principal in the company that owns the club and is planning to develop the property around it, heard the rumor from a friend recently. "He said, 'It was confirmed!"' Barnet said. "Well, no one confirmed it with me."
Ed Wankel, president of Long Island Golf Management, which runs the course off William Floyd Parkway, said people from the Metropolitan Golf Association have been asking him if Tallgrass will be shuttered soon.
Worse yet, Wankel added, "My wife is our director of operations and every night she comes home totally frustrated, saying, 'Can't you guys tell me we're staying open?"'
In a word, yes, according to Barnet. "We know we're open, we know we're staying open, we know we're spending money, putting it back in the golf course," he said, pointing out that workers are rebuilding the 10th tee with a more thatch-resistant kind of grass and are continually core-aerating the fairways.
"Tallgrass," Barnet said, "is not closing."
So why do so many people believe that it is?
One likely reason is that conventional wisdom is linking it with The Links at Shirley, which shares the same parkway and pedigree. Both courses are new, immaculately groomed, critically acclaimed and subject to the same economic pressures. The Links' owner said (LI Golfbeat, July 10) his course will shut down once Brookhaven Town approves a sale to developers.
Another possible reason for speculation about Tallgrass is that developer Alec Ornstein, another principal in the project, told Newsday last year that as a last resort to get the development completed, the owners would allow the course to return to nature so that it would qualify as open space.
The planned development still is up in the air. The Brookhaven Town Board last October approved Barnet's company's proposal for a 352-unit, mixed-use housing development and 120,000 square feet of commercial retail space, over the impassioned objection of Councilman Kevin McCarrick, whose district includes the site. This past March, a homeowners group, concerned about traffic and tax issues, filed suit against the town to overturn the rezoning.
What has kept the project from taking shape, though, is a 5-1 vote against Tallgrass by the Pine Barrens Commission (also known as the State Open Space Commission). Wankel said, "When the Pine Barrens [Commission] turned us down, I think everybody said, 'That's it, they're gone."'
Barnet is working on ways to make the development agreeable to the commission. "They basically told us to rethink it. We're going through that process right now," he said.
And building those houses and stores without fairways and greens is not something his firm wants to do. "The golf course is the core of the project," he said, indicating that living near a course will be the main selling point for the homes.
So he has issued a news release headlined, "Tallgrass Golf Course to Remain Open During Property Development."
"We believe in the vitality of the golf course because I know that living around a golf course is a very pleasurable thing and it also brings extra value to homes," Barnet said. "We still want to build a golf community and we want to try to find a way of compromising with the powers that be to make it work."
Meanwhile, he insists golfers will still be able to tee it up. "It's here to stay open," he said, "and the owners are continuing to invest money to keep it as one of the top golf courses on Long Island."
