To The Editor:
I am writing to you in response to a column in your March 22 edition. Howard Husock’s “Thinking Outside the Tee Box” suggested that Rye officials should reimagine how to use the 126-acre green space known as Rye Golf Club. According to Mr. Husock, “The Rye Golf Club — at least in the period since a previous manager was convicted of financial shenanigans — has been well-managed. The course is considered a jewel, because of its magnificent water view. The pool and locker rooms are kept clean and bright.”
He should have stopped there. That was the most accurate part of the opinion piece. Mr. Husock quotes a February 17, 2024, New York Times article that municipalities across the country and in upstate New York have chosen to “shutter” golf courses. The two California courses mentioned in that article both went out of busi- ness well before being sold to separate land trusts. The same goes for Cedar View Golf Course in Lansing, N.Y., located in the Finger Lakes region. It was built, owned and operated by the local Larsen family since the 1960s. It closed for good in 2021. The course and additional land were sold in 2023. Their towns didn’t choose to close these three courses, two of which were comprised of nine holes. The marketplace did. That information wasn’t in the Times article Mr. Husock cited.
Maybe we could get serious now and stay inside the tee box to talk about how Rye Golf Club should be allowed to continue as is: a wonderful facility that sees almost a quarter of Rye’s population use its services. There have been close to 30,000 rounds played on its 103-year-old course in each of the last few years. Rye High School’s golf teams are thriving in numbers with over 40 boys and 30 girls using the course. Several Garnets golfers have gone off to play on college teams recently with a boatload of talent coming up.
Our professional staff run an amazing youth and Junior League golf program that plays tournaments against other clubs in the area, giving these young golfers invaluable experiences playing this great game. The Metropolitan Golf Association will conduct a qualifying tournament for its Met Amateur Championship at Rye Golf Club in June. This is the most prestigious amateur event in the tri-state area. The MGA has held the qualifier here before. They don’t run their tournaments at one of those seven county- owned courses that Husock mentioned. The MGA holds Rye Golf Club’s Devereux Emmet course design in higher regard than Mr. Husock and the myste- rious anonymous group trying to repurpose the land certainly do.
I am a lifelong Rye resident who loved to jump off the three-meter diving board as a kid. I have enjoyed a golf membership since 1988. It is time to shutter “thought experiments” and ideas such as Mr. Husock’s as well as proposals of unidentified groups on other social media sites. Rye Golf Club is in very good hands with an energetic young general manager and several commission members who are as passionate as I am in making Rye Golf Club an exceptional family club.
—Jay Altmeyer
