Bayonne Links (NJ) Opening next year

[NAF]

For those who live in the NY Metro area Bayonne is an industrial city bordering Staten Island and Jersey City.  It isnt New Jersey's pride and joy, lets say that.  Basically the city sits on a 3 mile peninsula that juts into a harbor.

It has been a civic issue there to build a golf course on a former dump there and the course is slated to open next year. No idea who the designer is but the NY Post on page 23 has an article about it today.

The bullet points,

*10 minutes by ferry from Wall St.
*100,000 to join now, $250,000 later (are you kidding me?)
*Most expensive man made links at 23 million dollars
*100 foot Dunes, highest on the east coast
*All greens and tee face the water..

The investment group who built the course is Tom Darden's Cherokee Partners, a 1.6 billion dollar fund.  They are looking for returns on the course to be over 20% and are looking for more dilapidated areas to build courses.

Empire Golf which owns NJ National, Pine Barrens and a few other local courses is running the show for them at Bayonne.  My guess then is Eric Bergstol is doing the designing although I don't know.  Matt Ward should know more details.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

It is funny for a man from one of the more polluted states in America to throw stones at Bayonne NJ. Yet, they need another name other than Bayonne. There are few places anywhere that to merely say the name puts thoughts of dirty, poor, ugly, highly polluted, buried mobsters, abandoned shotup cars etc, ie not passsing the walk in the park test, more so than Bayonne NJ. lol The fact that it is going on a dump should provides decades of amusing stories at the past migrates to the surface.

[Jim Franklin]

I had dinner in Scotland with the gentlemen running this project and they showed me the plans. It looks awesome. They were overseas doing research on various grasses and courses, but the layout is essentially mapped. If they do what they say they are going to do, this should be an amazing place. I, for one, can hardly wait to see this project completed.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Here's some info (Bergstol and Davis Sezna of Hartefeld National and Mountain Branch are collaborating on this):

http://www.ncbl.com/archive/04-03news.html

http://www.bayonnenj.org/cgi-bin/news/newsall.cgi?news=272

rendering of layout on front page of this:

http://www.nyfederation.org/PDF/RedevelopmentofLandfills.pdf

[Jim Franklin]

It looks to me to be a truly Irish/Scottish links style course with elevation change, mounding, native grasses all within a 15 minute boat ride from Manhatten. To me, that's awesome. Again, my opinion, but what a great way to end your day on Wall Street in the summer than to hop on a boat at the bell, 15 minute boat ride, play 18 holes, then back to Manhatten. Try getting to east LI or even Westchester in 15 minutes from Manhatten. Can't be done.

I don't know if they can pull off the course, but from what I have seen I believe they can.

[Mike_Cirba]

Private or public?  

[Jim Franklin]

Private, I believe.

[Bruce Katona]

Private.

[Matt_Ward]

NAF:

I don't know where you got your info but my sources have indicated to me that an opening next year is reaching just a bit.

I have seen plans for the layout and it does look awesome but the key will be how "natural" the holes fit the property and how everything else meshes together.

We shall see ...

P.S. There is also a full 18 holes being planned for Jersey City. Hard to believe that golf is F-I-N-A-L-L-Y coming to Hudson County -- a place where grass usually grows by accident than by design!