Stats for the State of New York Certified Signature Sanctuaries: 3 Featured Signature Courses: North Hampstead Harbor Links The Bridge Turning Stone Casino Resort Golf Courses

The Bridge
Overlooking Sag Harbor and Little Peconic Bay on Long Island, New York, is the private 18-hole Rees Jones-designed golf course called The Bridge.  The 512-acre Suffolk County site was once home of the Bridgehampton Raceway, which hosted NASCAR stockers, such as Mario Andretti.  The golf course, 20 estate lots, and golf support facilities use only 281 acres of the 512-acre site.  Most of the course lies in the flat to slightly rolling area the racetrack had occupied.   Two-inch-deep organic matter produced by The Town of Islip for the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York provides a soil amendment for the course.  The golf course retains some of the historical provenance of the raceway.  The clubhouse sits where the former raceway parking lot and bleachers had been.  Approximately three miles of asphalt from the raceway were chipped and used as surface for its parking lot.  Speed-check stations were preserved in place as historical remnants of the raceway.  Entrance to the property comes through the one-time racetrack truck entrance, following counterclockwise along the old track up the hill and under the “Chevron Bridge,” which remains in good condition and retains its old red and blue Chevron logo.  The original racetrack guard rail barrier lines the north side of the track before disappearing into the bunkered mounding of the 18^th green.To buffer the golf course holes, the landowner donated 150 peripheral acres of land to the Town of Southampton as open green space preserve.  On May 17, 2005 The Bridge became the first private golf club in New York State to be designated as a Certified Audubon Signature Sanctuary.

Town Of North Hempstead Harbor Links
Town of North Hempstead Harbor Links Golf Course is a municipal 18-hole golf course with nine-hole executive course, miniature golf facility, and athletic fields (soccer), located in Nassau County, New York.  The most recent use of the site was as a sand-mining operation, abandoned in the late 1980s.  Hempstead Harbor and its associated coastal wetlands lie a quarter-mile to the east. The project covers 402 acres, including 10 acres of athletic fields.  One major goal of the project was to restore the highly degraded site to a more natural Long Island habitat.  All tees, fairways, and some roughs are constructed of suitable on site soils and have been amended with three to six inches of recycled compost.  Treated leachate and storm water runoff from an adjacent capped landfill supply irrigation water to the site, providing a method of disposal of the leachate and runoff, while obviating any on-site groundwater wells.  The local community water supply system serves only as a back-up system.  The Michael Hurdzan-designed golf course is the first municipal golf facility in New York to become certified as a Signature Sanctuary.  Learn more about Long Island and Harbor Links by going to www.harborlinks.com.

Turning Stone Casino Resort Golf Courses
The Oneida Indian Nation created the Turning Stone Casino Resort’s nine hole Sandstone Hollow, 18 hole Shenendoah Golf Course,  and 18 hole Kaluhyat in central New York near Verona, about halfway between Utica and Syracuse.  Sandstone Hollow was previously a quarry and orchard while Shenendoah and Kaluhyat were primarily agricultural lands.  Golf course construction took place in upland areas and was designed to integrate the existing site features, native vegetation, wildlife habitat, and wetland habitat with course layouts thus minimizing project impacts.  Wooded buffer zones lie between fairways and around waterways to provide travel corridors, cover, nesting sites, and food for wildlife.  The deciduous forest areas represent a second growth forest dominated by northern hardwoods, including American beech, sugar maple, white ash, and Eastern hemlock.  The Oneida Indian Nation’s land is sovereign, so governmental permits are not needed for purposes of development on it.   The Nation chose to work with Audubon International because of our mutual respect for the land and AI’s standards for sustainable resource management.  For more information on this first Certified Audubon Signature Sanctuary in New York peruse the web site at:
Sandstone Hollow:  http://turning-stone.com/golf/sandstone/
Kaluhyat:  http://turning-stone.com/golf/kaluhyat/
Shenendoah: http://turning-stone.com/golf/shenendoah/