No winter of discontent on LI

Erik Boland

April 5, 2007

Gene Contino has been in the golf course business 31 years.

He's experienced 31 different offseasons.

"Every year brings something," said the longtime superintendent at Eisenhower Park. "It makes the job interesting."

Which is one description of the past winter and its effects, or lack thereof, on Long Island's courses.

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The winter started docile enough with mild temperatures and not much snow. "We were actually mowing grass in January," Bethpage golf course superintendent Craig Currier said.

Contino said Eisenhower saw "record play" on its Blue and White courses in December [the Red Course, site of the Champions Tour's Commerce Bank Championship, has been closed since Dec. 10] and that his staff was mowing greens into January.

"That's unheard of," Contino said. "Then the weather changed so suddenly and pretty much shut us down."

The cold and snow finally arrived in February, along with the first of two ice storms. Still, the ice did more damage to JetBlue than area courses.

"The thing with the two ice storms was we were only under ice less than a week each time," Currier said. "When you have prolonged ice longer than 40 days, that's when you have problems."

Ice, superintendents said, not snow, cause the most problems for courses in the offseason. Grass covered in ice for longer than 40 days won't come back as quickly in the spring.

"Ice is like a hand over your mouth," Contino said. "The green doesn't breathe. Snow is like a blanket; ice just shuts it down."

But an early-winter snow combined with freezing temperatures thereafter can cause difficulties as well.

"The worst thing for supers, the last thing guys like Craig or myself want, is an early December snow that sticks around," said Seawane Club superintendent Brian Benedict, whose course hosts one of the season's early events, the Long Island Golf Association's Richardson Memorial May 3-5. "If you get heavy snow on Dec. 10 and it stays cold through January and February, then you're under snow or ice for 60-70 days, and you're setting yourself up where you have turf loss or damage."

Which for the most part was not the case for Long Island courses as this turned out to be the second straight winter with little snowfall and minimal ice.

"A few weeks ago Craig [Currier] and I, we made comment to each other if you can get to Jan. 20 without significant snow or ice cover, then you're going to be OK," Benedict said. "We came out down here pretty much unscathed."

Four of Bethpage's courses are open year-round and the Black, Currier said, will open on schedule April 13.

"Actually, the weather was great for the most part," Currier said. "We had a lot of little branches and twigs from the ice storms that we had to clean up, but turf-wise, it looks good. Everything's looking real good."

Aces returning

Holes in ones and other scoring accomplishments - e.g. double eagles - will again be listed on this page. For phone messages, include the following data: date, course, hole number, length of the hole and club used. Please leave a phone number and spell all names. Aces occurring in the offseason can be submitted.

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