Long Island National To Go Private

Pub links players at Long Island National, Riverhead, NY, will have some choices to make when Donald Zucker closes on the bankrupt course in the near future. The new owner says he'll keep RT Jones, Jr. design open for daily fee play through the end of this season, but then plans to take it private. Since he'll be getting a list of every player who ever trod the course from the old owners, he expects to market memberships to them.

When the club goes private, "It will be strictly golf," Zucker says. "We hope to attract really good golfers since it's such a tough track." Tom Doak, who recently completed renovation of Zucker's other course, North Shore CC, will be called upon to tweak Long Island National soon after the closing, although Zucker doesn't expect to see major changes. He's still in the planning stages, but knows he will improve the locker rooms and practice areas and address some of the routing issues on the course itself.

The 6,838-yard track went into bankruptcy last year. Zucker said he expected to see competitors bidding for the premium property but was pleasantly surprised to be the sole bidder. He reportedly paid $6 million for it.

Zucker expects to operate the club at a profit, although he told me that's not his prime motivation for buying it. "One of the things you can do when you're successful," he said, "is the things you want to do. This is not a venture done to make money. My best hope for Long Island National is to break even on it." He added, though, that he hopes to be pleasantly surprised as he was with the response to his takeover of North Shore CC.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf.