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The Marine Park Golf Course hosted the borough’s first Brooklyn Open Golf Championship on Oct. 21, and showcased some of the enhancements worked into the public course during the past five years.
“This is great for Brooklyn’’ said Borough President Markowitz, at the open. “This is a world-class golf course right here in Brooklyn.”
The Borough President was on hand to award the $2,000 winner’s check to Staten Islander and retired FDNY firefighter Pete Meurer, who out-putted Baysider Gabriel Lee, after both golfers finished the course one-under-par, to sink a sudden-death victory.
“I played pretty good,’’ said Meurer, a teaching pro at Staten Island Golf Practice Center.
Meurer was impressed with the quality of the course, which he hadn’t seen in decades.
“I haven’t been to Marine Park in 20 years until last Friday. I was very pleasantly surprised with the course,” he said.
Assemblyman Alan Maisel, who attended Monday’s match, went even farther, praising the operators, Mike and Adam Giordano, for taking advantage of their tenure to transform an unappealing course into something Southern Brooklyn can be proud of.
“A few years ago, it was a dump,” said Maisel. “These fellows came in after the last owners lost their contract, and they really put a lot of money into it.”
One of the Giordanos’ obligations in return for the concession rights to the city’s biggest public golf course, they’re required to invest millions of dollars in the course. Many improvements have already been made in the five years since the Giordanos took over, but there’s more to come throughout the remainder of their 20-year contract.
“Suffice to say, there’s millions we’ve already put into the course, and millions yet to go into it,” said Mike Giordano.
