Contino tunes Eisenhower Red for everybody

Mark Herrmann

May 8, 2008

One of the regular weekday golfers at Eisenhower Park saw Gene Contino, the director of golf, and said, "So, you're getting the course ready for the tournament," Contino replied, "No, I'm getting the course ready for you."

Fact is, he is doing both. Contino, whose greatest expertise is in maintaining a course's greens, tees, fairways and rough, again is preparing for the Commerce Bank Championship, the Champions Tour event to be held on Eisenhower Park's Red Course June 23-29. At the same time, he and his 15-member greens crew are keeping the Nassau County facility in shape for the people who play 40,000 rounds on it during a year.

Contino was especially thrilled that one of the prominent pros came up to him last year and said he had played Shinnecock Hills early in the week and deemed the Red's greens were smoother and truer. The Red is a model for public courses that struggle to keep their condition amid hundreds of thousands of footprints and divots.

"It's a passion for everyone who works out here. You can't do this without it," Contino said, adding that his crew is working 12-hour shifts leading up to the tournament.

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What is different this time around is that it could be the last time. Commerce Bank is part of TD Banknorth now and has let it be known it will not sponsor the event after this year.

So Contino and his staff are doing all they can to make such a good impression that another company will take sponsorship and keep the 21-year-old event running (this will be the sixth at Eisenhower after 16 at the Meadow Brook Club in Jericho).

He confirmed a report that there have been discussions with the PGA of America about holding a Champions Tour major here. The Senior PGA Championship could find its way to East Meadow, which would be a homecoming of sorts, given that the PGA Championship was held on the course in 1926 (when it was called Salisbury Golf Club; Walter Hagen was the winner).

There also is talk about having other minor and junior tour events at Eisenhower Park, possibly on the more rustic, links-like White Course. Contino is bullish on any tournament. It is a challenge for him, his assistant Ben Orlowski and their staff.

It also is a hike in prestige for Nassau County and its golfers. Course improvements benefit all the people who play more than 150,000 rounds at Eisenhower's three courses every year. "We're already up 6,000 rounds this year," Contino said.

And the Red will nonetheless be pristine when Nick Price, Jay Haas, Loren Roberts, Jeff Sluman and the rest of the pros show up next month.

"I have over 30 years experience, so I'd like to think I've learned something over the years," Contino said. "You've got to learn when to close a golf course, when it's too wet, when to keep the carts off. The watering has to be precise. The most important thing is to keep the greens dry. You have to keep them dry and firm."

That is what he learned when he started at Eisenhower in 1977 and when he took jobs at Bretton Woods in Coram, Indian Hills in Northport and as head of a management company that ran several courses throughout the state before he came back to the Nassau County complex in 1994.

Every year is new. The other day, he showed how the par-5 17th will be tougher for the pros because of a slightly different angle of approach, a new fairway bunker 270 yards from the tee and four new bunkers near the green. Even the old bunkers will have new, tightly packed sand. Contino is as pumped about the tournament as anyone.

"We can't," he said, "let this die."

Aces

Joseph Mullady, Veterans Golf Course, ninth hole, 120 yards, 7-iron.

Peter Keeler, Douglaston Golf Course, 17th hole, 112 yards, 8-iron.

Matt McHugh, Timber Point GC, second hole, 124 yards, 8-iron.

Arthur Dodge, East Hampton GC, 17th hole, 145 yards, 4-rescue.

Richard Epstein, Oyster Bay GC, sixth hole, 170 yards, 5-iron.

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Contino tunes Eisenhower Red for everybody

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Contino tunes Eisenhower Red for everybody

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