Golf Course Water Fight

By Tom Clavin

An aerial shot of the Maidston Golf Club shows its proximity to Hook Pond and the Atlantic Ocean.

Loyal readers of the column – that is, everyone in addition to my mother – will recall that in February I profiled the Maidstone Club in East Hampton. Dating from 1896, it remains one of the top 20 golf courses in the country.

Now I'm writing about the Maidstone again, but this time as a news topic because the venerable club of bluebloods has gotten itself involved in quite a controversy – not only on a local level, but nationally. The issue is water.

Among the aspects that has made the Maidstone Club unique is that it has never irrigated its fairways. Excellent management of the course coupled with regular rainfall and the dampness associated with a course being right on the Atlantic Ocean has meant that in the past Maidstone didn't have to be irrigated. According to club officials, that combination is no longer sufficient to keep the course as challenging and beautiful as it is. The culprit is climate change.

If the Maidstone simply wanted to irrigate with its own supply of water, it could. It is, after all, a private club (and one of the most exclusive in the world). Here's where the local controversy comes in. The club waters its tees and greens using wells that suck up groundwater. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will not allow the Maidstone to draw upon those wells any further because it is concern about saltwater being pulled into the freshwater supply.

Within the club's boundaries is Hook Pond. This 80-acre body of fresh water is fed by a four-mile-long watershed. Plan B for the Maidstone is to take water from the pond to irrigate the fairways. A study it has conducted states that one foot of water in the pond represents 25 million gallons, and to do the job right, the amount of water used for irrigation would lower the pond by no more than an inch or inch and a half per week, and much of that would be replaced by rainfall.

This strategy is not the state's jurisdiction but belongs to the Town of East Hampton. More specifically, it belong to the nine town trustees – a form of government separate from the town supervisor and town board – thanks to the Dongan Patent of 1686, which among other things gave authority over bottomlands in the town to the trustees.

The trustees in East Hampton are never quick to rubber stamp permits that involve the use of water, and in recent years they have become more ardent environmentalists. Several issues have been raised: (1) More pesticides will be used as a result of watering the fairways. (2) How much runoff will there be when the fairways are irrigated, and where will it go? (3) Is it fair to the residents and taxpayers of the town to allow public water to be used for a private club?
Related to the last issue, some local residents are weighing in on the exclusive history of the Maidstone Club. According to local attorney Stephen Grossman: "Now cometh the Maidstone Club asking that the trustees give them water from Hook Pond, which they hold in public trust. The suggestion was that Maidstone pay for this, and I think that is a really good idea, but instead of money, they should: (1) Open the course for play by East Hampton Town residents one day a week for a nominal greens fee. (2) Adopt an affirmative action policy with respect to applicants for club membership."

With the second suggestion, the reference is to the Maidstone Club's history of denying membership to Jews and African Americans. I recall back in the 1980s that a fellow who was already a member of the club was raked over the coals for marrying the singer Diana Ross.

The club has its defenders too. Writing in a local newspaper, Spencer Davis pointed out that had the Maidstone Club not been formed over a century ago, the site would contain "private homes which could not possibly compare to the present magnificent open field, heather, goldenrod, and other local indigenous gifts from nature which comprise the golf course."

He added: "The Maidstone club long, long ago specifically engineered golf course water runoff so as to keep Hook Pond a pond and not a swamp. Lovers of our extraordinary Hook Pond plus the surrounding exquisite vista are beholden to the Maidstone Club's vision, not to mention the shouldering of heavy costs."

There will be some tinkering, but I suspect that the East Hampton Town trustees will approve the Maidstone's irrigation plan. As a result, don't be surprised if the club hosts a few more benefit fundraisers for community causes than it has in the past. The club is certainly not to blame for climate change and its consequences, so it would be good if the town and club can work together to preserve a great American golf course.

By the way, the Maidstone Club and the Hamptons are far from alone in having to deal with water issues related to climate change. Over the last few years, several counties in southern Florida have experienced drought conditions – with the notable exception, alas, of when a hurricane hits – and as a result government officials have been clamping down on water uses on golf courses, which in turn could affect tourism.

As this is being written, 176 golf courses in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties have been under orders from the South Florida Water Management District for the past six weeks to cut water use by 30 percent. That is a pretty drastic cut, but it apparently can't be helped. The courses are also required to file weekly water usage reports. Courses found to exceed their allotment of water face daily penalties of up to $10,000.

If you're playing at your home course and it begins to rain, consider yourself lucky!

Shifting gears: PGA Tour officials must have felt like they were in heaven this past weekend when Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, and several other immediately recognizable names were at the top pf the leader board at the Wachovia Classic in North Carolina.

It has seemed like the big guns had good tourneys only when one or two of the other big guns took the week off, and there was very little head-to-head action, especially in the high-profile events. (Zach Johnson is already the answer to a trivia question.) This pattern didn't bode well for the anticipated fight for the FedEx Cup, the new system in place this year that is supposed to boost TV ratings and overall revenue. It doesn't help that Tiger's wife is to give birth in two months, and who knows how much "family leave" he will take in the weeks leading up to the FedEx Cup playoffs.

But fans and officials loved it on Wednesday when Tiger teamed up with Michael Jordan in the pro-am. The tournament itself, though bedeviled slightly by rain, was truly enjoyable. The outcome on Sunday of Tiger winning by two strokes was bliss for the TV audience. (Tiger wins, Roger Clemens back in pinstripes – all is well in the sports world.) Things should be even better at the Players Championship, moved from March to this month, at the TPC at Sawgrass. It aspires to be the fifth major, which is not unreasonable considering that the field is as strong as any major.

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Tom Clavin, who lives in Sag Harbor, writes about golf for The New York Times, The Met Golfer, Golf Magazine, and other publications. His recent book about golf is "Sir Walter: Walter Hagen and the Invention of Professional Golf." This column about everything in and around golf, especially with “links” to local courses, will appear every two weeks on Hamptons.com. Comments, questions, information about East End players and competitions, free golf apparel, and memberships hondo7@optonline.net.