[Stewart Abramson]

In case this wasn't previously posted. There was also a photo of the new #6 green that I can't figure out how to attach.

North Shore CC, saved from grave, gets a makeover
published: October 30, 2010 4:12 PM
By MARK HERRMANN  mark.herrmann@newsday.com

 
[ Caption of photo]: The new green on Hole No. 6 at the newly redesigned golf course at North Shore Country Club in Glen Head. The new course design was done by golf architect Tom Doak.

Considering that North Shore Country Club was doomed at this time last year, before Donald Zucker bought and revived it, 2010 was a fresh start. And when members return for the 2011 season, they will see that the course has a new finish, too.  As much as Zucker instantly loved the classic Seth Raynor layout, he wanted to change it at least a little. "I've had the opportunity to play the greatest golf courses in the world and I know what a good golf course is, and I knew this course needed help," said Zucker, a developer, philanthropist and golf nut. He was especially unsatisfied with the nondescript par-4 18th hole. So he hired Tom Doak, one of this generation's master architects, to strike a delicate balance: preserving the feel of a course that is nearly 100 years old while doing something bold - beginning with the ending.
"I want to make it as good as it can be," Zucker said. "I believe Tom is the best and I really wanted him to do it, and now that I have seen the results of what he has done, I'm tickled pink." Doak knows Long Island, having consulted on restorations for several venerable clubs and designed (with Jack Nicklaus) Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, where Zucker is a member. He also knows Raynor's legacy, having worked on some of the legend's original designs and having built the acclaimed Old Macdonald course in Oregon, in homage to Raynor's mentor, Charles Blair Macdonald. At the private club on Shore Road in Glen Head, though, there was more history than property. So Doak's solution was to turn things around. The first tee is where the 18th green used to be, and vice versa. The new 18th hole encompasses the old first and second holes and now is a memorable, scenic, challenging 600-yard par 5.
"I thought this course had some really interesting features, some really cool greens, some really neat pieces of topography, like the ravine you play over on 16," Doak said the other day, standing near the new first green. "But I never thought it fit together very well." The challenge was in the fact North Shore was established in 1914, before a boom in golf equipment technology (much like the boom in the early 2000s). Doak has found that pre-World War I courses are much different from those opened in the 1920s, when golfers began hitting the ball farther. "This course was laid out thinking people were going to drive it 200 yards. Whatever cool features there were, they tried to put them about 200 yards off the tee," he said. "So in the last 50 years, you've been driving so far past them that they weren't even in play. The only way we found to get some of those features back was to reverse a couple holes." Doak described the new first hole as a medium par 4, the second is a potentially drivable short par 4. The new 17th is what he calls "a really cool short par 3." There also is a new No. 7. "We're doing a lot of work here, but essentially we have left 13 holes alone," Doak said. "Because so much of that old golf course is still in play, all the new stuff is built to look like the old golf course. It's built to look like Seth Raynor built it." Of course, when Zucker spent $12.5 million last November to rescue North Shore from being plowed under, most people thought A.W. Tillinghast had built it. They weren't aware that Doak had written in his famous (now out-of-print) book "Confidential Guide to Golf Courses" that he discerned years ago from the greens and bunkering that it wasn't Tillinghast's work. Zucker was undaunted when researchers announced that North Shore was done by Raynor with help from Macdonald. He is excited about its future, including the 10 single-digit handicappers who recently signed up for membership.  "I have a goal here to be on the list of the top 100 courses in the country and I'm going to achieve it," Zucker said. "I'm in the real estate business. I build and I always try to be different. That has always been my mantra, to be different from the next guy." Toward that goal, he is adding an extensive short game practice area and a state-of-the-art fitness facility.  He also revealed that the revised course will have a Doak-built 19th hole. He wouldn't say what it will be like, leaving that for golfers to discover in the spring.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Here's the 6th green:



Here's the link to a tour of the course:

http://www.exploreli.com/recreation/golf/north-shore-country-club-1.2412236

[TEPaul]

"Of course, when Zucker spent $12.5 million last November to rescue North Shore from being plowed under, most people thought A.W. Tillinghast had built it. They weren't aware that Doak had written in his famous (now out-of-print) book "Confidential Guide to Golf Courses" that he discerned years ago from the greens and bunkering that it wasn't Tillinghast's work. Zucker was undaunted when researchers announced that North Shore was done by Raynor with help from Macdonald."



TomD:

Ya know, Pal, you really are Da Man!!

That's terrific that in your Confidential Guide you wrote on North Shore GC that you suspected it just couldn't be Tillinghast. And to think you obviously wrote that book long before you ever met or probably even heard of "Georgie Boy" Bahto!!

And now the course has been proven to be a Raynor (Macdonald). You said in the Confidential Guide that it reminded you of "Steamshovel" Banks' Whipporwill, but hey, Pal, that's definitely close enough to Raynor and Charlie B.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom P:

Oh, I had met George Bahto by 1994, long before most of you.  But we had never talked about North Shore before a year ago.  I had just spent a day there with the green committee in the early 90's, and I thought it was very odd that a supposed Tillinghast course had a Double Plateau green and a Road green and an Eden hole and a Redan. 

As for Robert White, there is a nice framed cartoon from the 1920's in the locker room at North Shore which gives him his due as the professional and greenskeeper.

[Tom MacWood]

TD
Was that the extent of your research? Are there any plans of putting your photo in the clubhouse after you redesign the golf course?

[Jeff_Brauer]

TMac,

Are you just asking out of curiosity or suggesting TD had an obligation to do more on a one day site visit years ago? As I read it, he was not restoring the course back in those days, but just making an observation.

[PCCraig]

"I've had the opportunity to play the greatest golf courses in the world and I know what a good golf course is, and I knew this course needed help,"

"I have a goal here to be on the list of the top 100 courses in the country and I'm going to achieve it,"

I'm in the real estate business. I build and I always try to be different. That has always been my mantra, to be different from the next guy."


Aren't these the type of quotes from an owner that make most of us shiver?

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul,
Continued swipes at MacWood and insertion of Merion into everything?  So much for your vows to clean up your act.

Why aren't you endlessly scolding Doak for not having gone to North Shore (or at least some self-appointed "friend of North Shore") with that information before publishing CG?

____________________________

Pat Craig,

Good question.

[Kris Shreiner]

Pat,

If the owner of those words isn't smart enough to recognize he should enlist the help of others when they are out of their depth of expertise...I totally agree with you that particular type of ego and ambition can make for a scary combination...hide the children! If however, they are the type that have been successful,  set goals and strive in an intelligent, but relentless manner to achieve them...that can lead to some tremendous contributions. Mr. Zucker seems to be on the right track. To be different,  while retaining quality in what you produce, is a noble and admirable way to go through life. I hope that folks would say that about my life at its conclusion and I believe you would as well.
Go Blackhawks!

[TEPaul]

"Aren't these the type of quotes from an owner that make most of us shiver?   "


Pat:

Yes, I think it's safe to say quotes of the type of Mr. Zucker's probably do make most on here shiver.

Should quotes like Mr. Zucker's about North Shore make most on here shiver or do they shiver over quotes like that simply due to some automatic knee-jerk reaction when anyone decides to touch an old golf course of a notable architect of the old days such as Raynor's 1914 North Shore golf course?

Personally, I think a better appoach from most on here would be to look carefully at all the details of the individual situation involving any course and club and then make an informed judgement about it.

What would have been a possible or even likely outcome if Mr. Zucker had not bought North Shore and brought in Doak to attempt to make the course better? One possible or perhaps likely outcome would have been the club would have gone out of existence and the golf course might have been plowed up for residential development or something of that type of alternative use.

Would that make most on here shiver or shiver more than what has been done with North Shore by Mr. Zucker and Doak?

I think that is the question or the most intelligent question that most should ask and try to answer including most on this website.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

So what kind of comments and questions have we gotten on this thread about what Mr. Zucker and Doak have done with North Shore?


Here are a few so far:


“TD
Was that the extent of your research? Are there any plans of putting your photo in the clubhouse after you redesign the golf course?”


“Why aren't you endlessly scolding Doak for not having gone to North Shore (or at least some self-appointed "friend of North Shore") with that information before publishing CG?”


And I made a comment and asked a few questions on Post #2 that prompted the remark just above. The one who made that remark has a point and therefore I chose to delete my remarks and question from Post #2 because it clearly is not beneficial or helpful in promoting an intelligent response to what has gone on with North Shore GC in the last year or so.

[Tom_Doak]

Pat C:

If this is going to turn into a Paul / MacWood / Moriarty slugfest, I am hereby bowing out, even if everything that follows is pure misinformation and b.s.  I'm on the record in this thread and in another about what we are doing with the golf course.

Tom Paul is right about one thing, though; North Shore would be NLE today if it wasn't for Don Zucker.  The club members owed $7.5 million on the place and were losing close to $1 million per year on operations.  They had agreed to sell it to a housing developer until Mr. Zucker came along and offered to save the course if he could buy it at a reasonable price for keeping it a golf course.

I can tell you that Mr. Zucker's quotes here sound much more radical than he is.  He is an extremely reasonable guy, and altogether one of the nicest clients I've ever had.  He loves the place, and he just wants to make it as good as it can be, in hopes of recouping his considerable investment in it -- the last is what the "top 100" quote is about -- he's never said that same thing to me, and I would have been wary of taking the job if he had.  Other than that, there is a quote about his real estate business -- he's developed some of the nicest apartments in New York City -- and a quote that he didn't think the golf course was perfect.  I would suggest that anyone who did is a bit light in the head.

[DMoriarty]

TomD,

It sounds like this was the right thing to do for that club and the photos of the changes look terrific.   Obviously each of these things have to be looked at on their own merits.

That said, we'd all probably have quite a stronger reaction if the quoted comments (sans your name of course) had been coming from Trump and about Engineers.   That is what I took to be Pat's point, but perhaps I got it wrong. 

[PCCraig]

Pat C:

If this is going to turn into a Paul / MacWood / Moriarty slugfest, I am hereby bowing out, even if everything that follows is pure misinformation and b.s.  I'm on the record in this thread and in another about what we are doing with the golf course.

Tom Paul is right about one thing, though; North Shore would be NLE today if it wasn't for Don Zucker.  The club members owed $7.5 million on the place and were losing close to $1 million per year on operations.  They had agreed to sell it to a housing developer until Mr. Zucker came along and offered to save the course if he could buy it at a reasonable price for keeping it a golf course.

I can tell you that Mr. Zucker's quotes here sound much more radical than he is.  He is an extremely reasonable guy, and altogether one of the nicest clients I've ever had.  He loves the place, and he just wants to make it as good as it can be, in hopes of recouping his considerable investment in it -- the last is what the "top 100" quote is about -- he's never said that same thing to me, and I would have been wary of taking the job if he had.  Other than that, there is a quote about his real estate business -- he's developed some of the nicest apartments in New York City -- and a quote that he didn't think the golf course was perfect.  I would suggest that anyone who did is a bit light in the head.

Tom:

Thanks for responding.

I agree with you, and TEPaul, that Mr. Zucker is obviously doing what's best for the game and North Shore by purchasing the course from developers and hiring you to come in and work on the design. I don't know him from Adam, so that's probably why I thought the quotes were odd considering the type of project North Shore seems to be, to me they sound like something Trump would say. But perhaps I've been in the Midwest long enough since school that I can't see the subtleties various east coast personalities

[TEPaul]

"Pat C:
If this is going to turn into a Paul / MacWood / Moriarty slugfest, I am hereby bowing out,....."


TomD:

I'm hereby bowing out with you! 

[Terry Lavin]

"I've had the opportunity to play the greatest golf courses in the world and I know what a good golf course is, and I knew this course needed help,"

"I have a goal here to be on the list of the top 100 courses in the country and I'm going to achieve it,"

I'm in the real estate business. I build and I always try to be different. That has always been my mantra, to be different from the next guy."


Aren't these the type of quotes from an owner that make most of us shiver?

Hubris can sometimes be useful, especially in a situation where a set of balls can spare a classic from the wrecking ball.

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