A Site to be Seen
By ROB THOMAS
from Golf Course News

Real estate’s popular idiom stresses the importance of location, and Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, N.J., claims to have one of the best.
On the banks of the Hudson River, in the shadow of Manhattan’s skyline and under the watchful eye of the Statue of Liberty sits the yet-to-open golf course with an estimated price tag of $129 million. The course is scheduled to open July 4.

The property Liberty National Golf Club sits on is one of a kind, according to Dan Fireman, president and chief executive officer of Willowbend.

The property Liberty National Golf Club sits on is one of a kind, according to Dan Fireman, president and chief executive officer of Willowbend.

The beginning
Professional golfer Tom Kite, who teamed with golf course designer Bob Cupp to create Liberty National, dates his involvement with the project to 1992 when he participated in a corporate outing at the TPC at Avenel for a law firm in Washington. There he met Rusty Bayliss, vice president, commercial, for the London and Scottish Marine Oil Co.

“He had a dream of turning this site into something useful,” Kite says. “It was a wasted piece of property.”

Cupp refers to the site as 100 years of industrial sins because of its history as an oil refinery and Army base.

Rowland Bates, Willowbend Development executive v.p. and executive project director for Liberty National, started on the project in 1997 when he headed up Golf Realty Advisors, a firm specializing in golf real estate consulting, development and brokerage. Willowbend purchased GRA in 1998 and was introduced to the project.

“The only thing I could see was the proximity to Manhattan, the skyline and the Statue of Liberty,” Bates says about the first time he stepped foot on the site.
“It’s one of those kinds of projects that’s once in a lifetime because of its proximity,” he adds. “This is something special and won’t come along again, I think.”

Between 2 and 3 million cubic yards of soil were brought in to cap the site prior to construction.

Between 2 and 3 million cubic yards of soil were brought in to cap the site prior to construction.

When Dan Fireman, president and chief executive officer of Willowbend, first visited the site, there were eight warehouses cluttering the view. Even then he could see potential.

“I came out, saw it and said ‘wow,’” he says. “Without a doubt, the majority of the land was blighted. It didn’t look good.”

At the time, Willowbend managed nine golf courses.

“We were looking for other opportunities, and this was certainly a one-of-a-kind piece of dirt,” Fireman says.

Jon P. O’Donnell, division president of Heritage Links, the builder, was in awe of the views when he first visited.

“It’s the most spectacular view of any metropolitan city in the world for a golf course site,” he says. “It was a tremendous site observing our bulldozers and finish tractors working in the shadows of one of the most visible attractions in the world – the Statue of Liberty.”

Exact specs
Between 2 and 3 million cubic yards of soil were brought in to cap the site prior to construction, according to Fireman.

“It took a lot of time, thought and effort to make sure this thing is contained,” he says. “But there’s nothing that’s extremely toxic under the site.”

Being a brownfield site, plans had to be exact, according to Bates.

“We had to follow very specific designs,” he says. “We needed to know exactly where we were on the site. It was an extremely difficult and costly project from that aspect … and we did it in record time.”

The drainage installed throughout the course, especially in the driving range, was very deep at times, according to O’Donnell.

More than a dozen years went into making the course that stretches as long as 7,500 yards.

More than a dozen years went into making the course that stretches as long as 7,500 yards.

“Heritage Links monitored all installation and exact location of installation with their GPS survey instruments so that depths – due to environmental capping – were not exceeded,” he says. “A liner was installed during the environmental mitigation of the site and couldn’t be penetrated during course construction.”

When designing Liberty National, Cupp says the team had to be extremely cognizant of the underground and couldn’t go deeper – only higher – with features.
“We had to use our brains below the ground as much as above it,” Cupp says, adding that the biggest type of change was altering or eliminating a bunker – no wholesale changes could be made. “We routed this golf course until we were purple.”

Kite, who says there’s as much as 45 feet of fill above the cap in some spots, says he’s never been part of a project with such exacting specifications.

“We ended up with one of the most detailed sets of drawings that had ever been done,” he says. “Once the plans were drawn, the golf course had little variation from what had been drawn. We really had to follow the plans. It’s a good thing Bob and I are believers in the plan. It’s expensive pushing paper … it’s a lot more expensive pushing dirt.”

The team’s flexibility is an important trait in such a design, Bates says. Whether it had to do with remediation or moving a feature, with a project like this, one has to go with the flow because the unexpected is inevitable.

Super responsibilities
Being a reclamation site, the builders and designers had many problems to deal with. For golf course superintendent Greg James, it was countering the high salinity in the soil that was atop his list. Much of the capping materials were dredged from the bay and nearby rivers, so the sand and soil have high salt content. To combat this, James enlisted cultural practices of applying gypsum and PhysioCal to leach the sodium out of the soil. He’s been conducting monthly soil tests that indicate everything is in the normal range.

James says the 5,200 sprinkler heads are another big chore, but he’ll have the benefit of an internship program to add qualified workers to his staff.

Maintaining a green and healthy course is much the same from one club to the next, however, the layout of Liberty National will present unique challenges.

“It’s a meticulous place,” James says. “It’s going to take a lot of hand work.”

Schedule
Having started work on Liberty National in August 2004 and faced with the task of completing grassing within a year, Heritage Links encountered tight deadlines. The crews – led by project manager Grayson Cobb and project superintendent Chris Veal – started working long hours (six days a week, 12 hours a day) in May and June. The exceptionally dry weather helped Heritage Links complete its tasks. Because the owners requested 11 to 12 months of grow-in time prior to opening, working hours increased to 80 a week in July and August so the grassing would be completed in the fall.There are 5,200 sprinkler heads on the course at Liberty National Golf Club.

“Once we got to moving dirt, we’ve been going at a break-neck pace,” Kite says.

There are 5,200 sprinkler heads on the course at Liberty National Golf Club.

Lofty goals
With a price tag that might approach $150 million when all is complete, Liberty National wasn’t conceived merely to host member-guest outings and weekend golfers. The estimated membership cost of $500,000 will make the club quite exclusive, but playing host to the world’s best golfers and the game’s most prestigious events will place Liberty National on the map.

“It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” Fireman says about hosting championships such as the U.S. Open or President’s Cup. “But we’re in no rush.”

Fireman admits Liberty National won’t have the history of many of golf’s great courses when it opens, but the area has more than enough history to make up for that.

“We get to marry the tradition of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty,” he says.
Kite says he and Cupp designed Liberty National with tournaments in mind – making space for parking, concessions, hospitality tents, grandstands and everything else associated with tournament golf.

“The location and site dictated the quality of golf course we built,” Kite says. “Not every golf course has the opportunity to play host to [PGA and USGA] championships. This gave us an opportunity to think way in advance of our history … looking 20, 30, 40 years from now.”

Pressure
All who worked on the project felt pressure to get the job done in a spectacular fashion because it’s a high-profile job.

“The pressure to not screw it up – to do the best course – was huge,” Cupp says.
“Both of us felt the pressure,” Kite says about he and Cupp. “But I don’t put the word ‘pressure’ in a negative connotation. You’re putting yourself in something exciting. It allows the adrenaline to start pumping. I put myself on the line because I love that feeling.”

James admits to feeling pressure, but insists it’s no different than what any other superintendent feels.

“In this business, everybody is under a lot of pressure no matter what,” he says. “I put a lot of pressure on myself. If you have the resources – like we do – everything should get done and done right.”

Fireman, who provides those resources, says excellent preparation relieves any pressure he might feel.

“It’s not pressure, it’s exciting,” he says. “You get so focused on just trying to get it done. We’ve taken a path, and we’re comfortable with how things are coming along.”

Finished product
More than a dozen years went into the making of a course that can stretch to 7,500 yards playing at a par 70 for tournaments, but will generally play at 7,000 yards and a par 72 for everyday use. Fireman says it’s important to play from the correct set of tees because the wind coming off the water can be brutal.

Bates agrees.

“The golf course has tremendous teeth from the back tees,” he says. “It’s designed to host the world’s best players.”

Cupp and Kite spent a lot of time during the design process to have the course be ready to host a major tournament without having to do much of the extra work that goes into preparing for an event.

“It’s like pulling off a 2 1⁄2 with a full twist in front of 100,000 people,” Cupp says using a diving reference. “This is my defining moment ... and I don’t plan on retiring.”

Kite puts a competitive connotation on Liberty National.

“Playing tournament golf is fun, but some tournaments are more exciting than others,” he says. “Just as there are golf tournaments and major championships, there are golf courses and major golf courses. This is at the top of the list. This is the U.S. Open of golf course design.” GCN