CLUB FOCUS
By Andy Abrahams
At one of the highest elevations in Nassau County on Long Island, Old Westbury Golf & Country Club offers members and guests panoramic views of Long Island perched atop the grounds of the Whitney family estate. Even higher is the 187-ft. Whitney Tower that was once a windmill and a lookout for enemy aircraft in World War II. But now the most spectacular sight at the venerable 65-year-old club is last year’s stunning $14.5 million renovation of the 27-hole course, completed in an astonishing three months and over $2 million below budget. Golf architect Brian Silva, along with Old Westbury’s superintendent, Tom McAvoy, were entrusted with reimagining a course designed in the 1960s, while still retaining the spirit of the original layout.
The club had been talking about renovating their course for years, but there was concern about the disruption to their 500 members to shut down the course for such a massive undertaking. They could have done each nine-hole course over a period, but the overall upheaval would have stretched out for three or four years.
When they interviewed architects, Silva stood out not only for his impressive resume (other renovations include Seminole Golf Club, Augusta Country Club, Cape Cod National, Meadow Brook Club, and Baltimore Country Club) but also how fast he worked, like transforming all 18 greens at Vesper Country Club in Tyngsboro, Mass., in a quick 42 days in 2009.
A key factor in the project’s success was convincing longtime member and friend of Rosen’s, Richard Browne, managing partner of Sterling Project Development, to join the team as owner’s representative and help spearhead the renovation. Browne embraced the project as a personal passion project and played a major role coordinating the accelerated schedule and countless moving parts required to complete a 27-hole renovation in a single offseason. According to Rosen, Browne’s compensation package consisted primarily of “a handshake, a hug, and signature Old Westbury cookies.”
Silva knew that the greens at Old Westbury needed the most attention. “Especially on uphill holes, a number of them had a painful amount of pitch to them,” he says. “It was a little easier than it should be for players to putt off the green and then need an 8-iron coming back. And almost all of these greens at the top of the hill were deeper than they were wide.”
He also thought the fairways needed an upgrade, too. “I wanted them to be a bit wider, and I also wanted fairway bunkers to come more into play and add more twist and flow and turn in the fairways.”
With three nine-hole courses (Bluegrass, Overlook, and Woods), Silva and McAvoy’s crew had their work cut out for them when the first shovel went into the ground on August 17th. Blessed with good weather, some 100 laborers, under the direction of NMP Golf Construction, started reshaping the courses. They redid every green and removed about 40 of the 110 bunkers.
By November 14th, the massive project was finished. McAvoy and Rosen couldn’t have been more pleased with the result. “We had a good golf course on a great piece of property and now, we have a great golf course on a great piece of property,” Rosen says.
McAvoy, who was once a student of Silva’s in a turf science class at the University of Massachusetts Stockbridge School, points to the seventh hole on the Woods course as one example of how differently a hole could be played. The 559-yard, uphill par 5 “had a blind third shot into the green that was substantially changed,” Silva says. “The bunkering was moved, and a hill slope was graded in a way that a ball could release and roll towards the green. It also had a tiny, crescent green before and now it’s a massive punch bowl that’s really good.”
One of the more dramatic restorations was the fourth hole on the Overlook nine, a 386-yard par 4 with a pond next to a large, elevated green. The pond was 12 feet lower than the green, “so Brian’s vision was whenever you have a hazard, it should have a relationship to the green” Rosen says. “The green was lowered substantially to meet the water level.”
When the self-effacing Silva went back recently to look at the finished project, he gave himself a small pat on the back. “It was pretty good, which is about as high as I get in terms of a compliment for my own work,” he says. “With such an expedited schedule, you don’t have a lot of time to go back and walk or ride the course, and you sort of lose the appreciation for the entirety of the work.”
He also praises his former protégé McAvoy’s role in the renovation. “Tom has turned into a very talented, get-the-job-done kind of guy, and I’m really proud of him.”
One thing that remains unchanged is the club’s rich, storied history. In the early 20th century, members of one of America’s most famous families, the Whitneys, established Old Westbury as a symbol of American wealth and prestige. William Whitney, then secretary of the Navy, built the original mansion on the grounds in 1902 and, in 1941, the estate was inherited by William’s grandson, Cornelius. The structure was demolished, and a Georgian-style mansion was built a year later, inspired by the antebellum mansion depicted in the 1939 film Gone with The Wind, which Cornelius co-produced. The club purchased 200 acres from the Whitney estate in 1961. Old Westbury’s first club president, Arthur Weber, used his engineering background and worked with the club’s original course architect, William Mitchell, with Golf Digest giving it a high ranking not long after it opened.
The club is also the permanent host of the Long Island Golf Association’s Arthur Weber Memorial Senior Amateur Championship, which returns to Old Westbury in late October after last year’s renovations.
For members, there are even more exciting events ahead. A $12.5 million renovation of the fabled clubhouse is due to start in October, and the new course will be on full display to the field at the Met Open Championship Presented by Callaway in 2028. But first, Rosen looks forward to the reviews of the golfers who started playing their home course again on May 7th.
“I want our members to be proud of what we’ve done,” Rosen says. “I think Brian Silva said it best: ‘Just remember, golf should be fun.’ I think our course will be a lot more fun.”