Ferry Point Pics

[Ronald Montesano]

Man, I don't know what some people want. I could play this course forever. I can imagine the shifting winds and I'd get used to the sounds and smells. This is Nicklaus Post-Doak-Collaboration and don't tell me he didn't learn a little something.Thanks to Brother Joe for shooting every needed angle of the course to give us a true perspective of Ferry Point.

$150? I suspect that my Buffalo IS Teachers Salary would translate to a little more in NYC and I'd be able to afford 5-8 rounds a year here. I'd play on weekdays, when the freight would hopefully be a bit less. Failing that, I'd figure out how to sneak on.

Who cares if he doesn't get a major here? He might get a Web.Com, or a Barclays or something that will suit the Bronx just fine.

Judgement for golf. Next case.

[archie_struthers]

  8

Joe , thanks for pictures, as always , nicely done! 

I know its a GCA site , but aren't a lot of you incensed at the utter debauchery of our ruling class in spending  $261 million of taxpayer money on this job?  How can they get away with this over and over again with no recourse for us to,say , thank you, may I have another.

[Steve Lapper]

8

Joe , thanks for pictures, as always , nicely done!  

I know its a GCA site , but aren't a lot of you incensed at the utter debauchery of our ruling class in spending  $261 million of taxpayer money on this job?  How can they get away with this over and over again with no recourse for us to,say , thank you, may I have another.

Archie,

   If it was only the "ruling class" who enabled this trough   .

   Sadly it was the corrupt Parks & Rec commission civil servants, unions, mobs, and worthless municipal contractors who perpetrated this fraud on the taxpaying citizens of NYC. But lets at least separate the $150MM+ number needed to remediate and cap the dump as necessary regardless of whether golf ever existed (or could) there.

   A wonderful late NY Senator had a great line that applies here to all (including Donald Trump himself):

   "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts!"

[Joe Bausch]

thank you so much for the pics. as i've looked through it, it reminds me ALOT of the seawane club on long island post its renovations... also has some resemblance to long island national / liberty national and that 7th hole reminds me of a par 4 at trumps place in palm beach where you can also try and drive the green.

I've heard good things about Seawane.

[Jim Sherma]

Joe - great set of photos. I think you really did a good job at showing the elevation and shaping of many of the greens. The course looks quite compelling and I will definitely make an effort to play it a some point. There are some aspects that look artificial but that is to be expected. All in all it looks much better in this set of pictures than I expected based on the few that I've seen before.

[archie_struthers]

 


Thanks for the info , Steve. Not that the $150 million for reclamation wasn't tainted by the smell !

Pretty nice price to build the golf course though.

[Tim Martin]

I have followed this thread with interest as from my front door I could hop in the car and be on the first tee in less than 90 minutes. Some revelations by Jay Flemma spread out over a number of posts are as follows: "Bottom line it lacks the charm and character of the terrain and setting of the great seaside links. It doesn't have the charm or old world feel of a Garden City or Rockaway Hunting Club. At Ferry Point the place is pretty flat, and features smokestacks, projects,bridges, cemeteries and a landfill".

Imagine that in the BRONX, that's right the BRONX,NYC,NY you would have flat land and apartment buildings, smokestacks, bridges and at least one cemetery on the perimeter. Additionally there is enough traffic in the area that you might hear diesel horns. As far as the observations that I referenced above unless Jay enjoys being the master of the obvious they seem beyond superfluous.

Thankfully others have offered their take as well. You know just for balance.

[JWL]

Joe
Thanks for the pics.   I enjoyed seeing all of them.  I think you captured the place.
Two things that were missing that I would have liked to have been included...the putting green, practice green and range look from different angles.   Also, these pics were without he wispy fescue growth, which I have seen and love on the forms.   Thanks again, nice work.

[Joe Bausch]

Joe - great set of photos. I think you really did a good job at showing the elevation and shaping of many of the greens. The course looks quite compelling and I will definitely make an effort to play it a some point. There are some aspects that look artificial but that is to be expected. All in all it looks much better in this set of pictures than I expected based on the few that I've seen before.

I'm very happy to read your opinion, Jim.  I worked hard to present the course like my eyes saw it.

Since we've played together a few times, you might have been as impressed as I was to find how firm the place was.  The entire course was that way, including the greens.

The ground game was in play in many places.  And I was in a bunch of fairway bunkers; where my drives landed way short and ran 50+ yards!  Gosh I loved it.

The greens were wicked fast.  I wonder if the general play will like it that way.  Maybe so. 

[Stephen Kay]

Jay - thanks for starting post on Ferry Point - I have not been there yet (I was there a few times back in the 1990's).  I just drove over the Whitestone Bridge yesterday and it sure looks great from the bridge, I am looking forward to playing it especially since I am a native NYC kid who grew up in Whitestone, Queens.  I have heard from a few guys that John Sanford and Jim Lipe did a great job.  PS-for all you history nuts Jim Lipe and I worked together back in the late 1970's for Bill Newcomb who was the first guy to work with Pete Dye (and PS- bill was the best golfer of all the guys who worked for Pete).  Also Jim was a great golfer - when I worked with him he was listed as a top ten player in Michigan.

[Joe Bausch]

Joe
Thanks for the pics.   I enjoyed seeing all of them.  I think you captured the place.
Two things that were missing that I would have liked to have been included...the putting green, practice green and range look from different angles.   Also, these pics were without he wispy fescue growth, which I have seen and love on the forms.   Thanks again, nice work.

JWL, yes, my pics are a nice contrast to others available with the fescue grown in.  At least I think so.  :-)

I hope balance is found concerning the long grass.... the course is plenty challenging w/o and if fescue is all over, well, me thinks the rounds will take longer.  Maybe a lot longer.   

[JWL]

Joe
That is being addressed and I am confident that when the course opens that Greg Eisner, the super, will have that and  the entire course in great shape.

[Mike Nuzzo]

From the aerial picture in Golf Digest, all the holes look similar.
Long straight parallel fairways with the bumps outside the fairways.
It reminds me of the aerial of the Rees Jones course in Canada.

[M. Shea Sweeney]

How bout the jobs FP brings to the table, and has brought thus far..

[Mark Bourgeois]

The fairway contours still look too flat, and especially too ordered, given the busyness of the surrounds. The more I see modern "links style" efforts, the more this approach becomes apparent to me. It's an uncanny valley problem that exposes it as unnatural if not anti-natural.

[Steve Lapper]

Mike Nuzzo,

  It's easy for many of the highly touted courses to look somewhat mundane from an aerial perspective. Unless the terrain is vastly unique with large natural features, or sufficiently large enough to allow for a sizable routing, it's a difficult taks to squeeze 18 holes into a smaller, defined single tract of land.

  I think JWL might be best enabled to discuss the rationale behind the routing, however I can tell you that 18 plays to every angle of the ever-present windy conditions.

 Mark,

  The fairway contours have good, if not slightly subtle, movement. It's hard to pick up from the photos but they aren't nearly flat.

   I'd ask you should an architect endeavor to make these features artificially busy?? Yes, it becomes a "valley problem" when mounding of any nature is used to define fairway widths, but if the entire course in decidedly unnatural in it's totality, should the ground heave to-and-fro in excess?? For example, other artificially-styled courses like Whistling Straights, Bayonne, and Streamsong vary in fairway contouring without excess and aren't critiqued as such. Given the waste dump remediation at Ferry Point, just wondering where the limits should be placed?

Cheers

[Jaeger Kovich]

Steve - You go to such lengths to defend the containment mounding. There are other ways to solve the problem of having to build up and create a landscape at the same time. I have tried to explain this numerous times and you continually refuse to think differently and defend the mounding. I hope you are getting a kickback from the pipe salesmen! #ignoring surface drainage is a sin!

[Steve Lapper]

Jaeger,

   I am only defending (or embracing) what has been built and exists today.  I may no bones about what decisions were made, or when, on any of the construction or budgeting decisions. Ask JWL or others why. Ask them how many choices they had with which to solve drainage on top of a waste remediation cap? What alternatives were available at the time? I don't know...how do you???

   I've got ZERO financial stake or affiliation in anything on the property and don't pretend to.  Unlike you, I've walked and played the course and don't make my opinions and critical comments from behind a screen.  I prefer to look at it through a golfer's prism, not a construction POV. The site plays fast and firm (even after sizable rainfall). That's what a golfer cares about. Myself and quite a few others who have played or walked it so far really seem to find more to like than not.

   Like your past foolhardy comments about holes that you've decided are certain templates (Quaker #9 as a Redan     ) you opine on things, albeit with limited experiences and limited knowledge. Wow! How does caddying and some limited work as a field hand with Renaissance qualify you to become such an unquestionable expert? How many courses has your esteemed Proper Golf built or worked on atop capped waste dumps??? How many have you seen across the world?

  Your screen-based assumption that it's "ignoring surface drainage" is yet another example of your doing what Abe Lincoln reminded us to avoid way back when: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt!"

[Tim Gavrich]

From the pictures, I think the course environment/aesthetic seems nicely contextualized for where it sits. The surrounding landscape, after all, is pretty much completely man-made, and the site for the course had to be manipulated greatly (and, yes, expensively) by Man in order to be what it is now, so why shouldn't the course reflect some sense of human interference with Nature?

Of course, this doesn't bother me because I reject the notion, held by many on this site, that golf courses necessarily must "look" "natural." GCA history has given us enough great courses built by significant manipulation of land to argue for a unity of opposites, IMO. Can we revere "Steamshovel" Banks and disdain the aesthetic pursued at Ferry Point at the same time?

Hope to see it in person sometime.

[Sean_A]

M Shea,

   For starters, Eric Bergstol, Bayonne's developer WAS PAID by a variety of entities to dredge the Bayonne Harbor, thus giving him fill and soil to build his course. Ferry Point's owners, the City of New York, PAID PRIVATE CONTRACTORS to truck in dirt to cap and fill a garbage waste dump.

Sean,

   The original plans of nearly thirty years ago called for vastly cheaper greens fees, reflecting both a realistic budget and cheaper construction and operational costs. Surely even you can understand that the real travesty is neither the greens fee nor the golf side, but instead the ridiculous municipal waste ad graft that was enabled by the city. While it doesn't in and of itself justify a high greens fee, ANY potential bidder for the operating rights to the property was going to try to recapture their embedded costs to bring the final phase of the build-out (final few holes, grow-in, and facility construction).

Steve

It doesn't matter me who is at fault, but imo a $150 green fee for a muni is outrageous.  Its highly suspect that a government would choose to compete in such a tight market.  Then to throw fuel on the fire the green fee effectively excludes some tax payers who paid for the project. This is a tough double whammy to overlook. The course looks fine, but nothing which warrants the green fee...so it won't get my business.  I hope 1) others love the course so the place can pay for itself and 2) nearby courses don't take a hit due to government intervention.

Ciao    

[Tim Martin]

The first order of business for NYC was to remediate the waste dump and that was accomplished. That there is now a golf course there should be applauded. Did it cost too much and did it take too long? The answer to these questions seems pretty clear. That said the pictures look good and personally I love the backdrop with the bridge and the Manhattan skyline.The price point considering the location and going on the premise that the developer should have a reasonable expectation of recouping their investment seems reasonable. It won't take that long to determine what the market will bear. Looking forward to playing it.

[Keith Grande]

From Joe Bausch's pictures, the fairways and green complexes look to have alot of movement in them.  I hope it plays as firm and fast as mentioned.

[Carl Nichols]

My two cents--

1.  $150 doesn't seem crazy to me for a good public course in that location, given the cost of living and other available public options.

2.  Whether a municipal course should charge that much is a different question, and I can see the arguments for and against. 

3.  I like the surroundings and views, which make the course unique and interesting.

4.  As for the course itself, I haven't played there, but from the pictures it reminds me a lot of the Nicklaus Signature course at the Peninsula on the Indian River Bay--which I thought was solid and fun but not overwhelmingly great. 

[Evan Louden]

Isn't Bethpage Black also $150 (for non-residents) and municipal? Is it overpriced as well?

[Carl Nichols]

Isn't Bethpage Black also $150 (for non-residents) and municipal? Is it overpriced as well?

Earlier posts in this thread suggested that Ferry Point might charge $150 for residents.  I don't know if that's true.  BPB is half that for residents.