The operators of the Marine Park Golf Course are just trying to keep their head above water, but it’s getting the water that’s the problem.
The course’s caretakers, facing rising bills from their reliance on the city’s water supply, have spent more than four years working with engineering firms to find an alternate way to bring water to the city’s largest public golf course.
Now they have found a solution, but they’re stuck treading water waiting on the Parks Department bureaucracy — for the past two years running — leaving them shaking their heads.
“We’ve invested so much time, energy and capital,” said Michael Giordano, who operates the course with his son, Adam. “We’re all stakeholders in this. Myself, the city, and the community. It would be beneficial for all parties involved to have a successful conclusion.”
The public golf course is the only one in the city that relies on metered city water to keep its greens green. Others have wells on site to draw free groundwater for most of their needs, but positioned so close to the briny ocean, that’s not an option for Marine Park Golf Course.
Finding another water source is the only way the course, which “Crain’s 5boros” magazine recently rated the second-best public links in the city, is the only way to make the course sustainable, according to Giordano.
So they hired engineers who spent four years and thousands of dollars drilling test wells further inland, and then sending water out for evaluation to make sure the salt content was low enough for irrigation. The engineering firm eventually found a water source which passed the test, but delivering the water to the course will be a costly proposition.
“The good news is we found the quality water,” Giordano said. “The bad news is it’s a mile away.”
The engineers designed a pump configuration and a way to route the water back to the course, and now funding is the hold up.
The project, which Giordano said will cost about $2.5 million, is supposed to be a joint venture between the Giordanos and the city. But the Parks Department has been keeping Giordano waiting for two years as it reviews the contracts.
The entire process is frustrating Giordano, continuing to cost him money in water bills, and delaying his plans for improving the course.
“We were hoping to get this done this year,” he said. “But even if we start tomorrow that is not realistic. We have to do this off-season. We can’t really do it during golf season, because the city is still going to want their rent. We have to pay our rent every month.”
The Parks Department has not returned repeated calls for comment.
Giordano claims that based on 2010 numbers, he paid more for water than the rest of the city’s 11 golf courses combined, and he doubts that has changed five years later.
The course’s previous operators dealt with the water expense issue by using less water and allowing the course to deteriorate, he said. That’s why the course was more brown than green when the Giordanos took over more than six years ago. They have nursed the course back to health ever since.
The Giordanos have a “master plan” to beautify the course, including a renovation of each hole. But pursuing the plan would require even more water than the course is using now, so it is all on hold until the water sourcing project is completed — a process that Giordano estimates will take two years worth of off-season work to complete — and that work can’t even begin until the city signs off.
Giordano said his management team has made a priority of engaging the community — offering classes for kids and women, giving tours of the course, and promoting their on-site restaurant in an effort to make the course more inclusive to folks beyond the golfing set — because he takes the public nature of the course seriously. He’s just hoping the city does too.
“It’s a feather in the cap of the community,” Giordano said. “Previous owners did not want to invest the money into this because it is a gamble. But we’ve invested the money. We’re just looking for a little help.”
