Looking to join a first-class private golf club in Westchester County that features a championship-quality course with breathtaking views and a golf-resort feeling, but that won't cost you an arm and a leg?
Look no further. Golf course architect Eric Bergstol, a developer of a dozen golf club courses and builder of commercial and residential properties in the tri-state area, has just the club and course for you, namely the Hollow Brook Golf Club in Cortlandt Manor. The 6,900-yard course, more than five years in the making, opened on a limited basis last fall. It will be operating six days a week (it is closed on Tuesdays) beginning this spring.
The cost to join Hollow Brook is way south of what most clubs in Westchester charge these days and—get this—there are no assessment fees, no food minimums, and no admissions process dues tacked onto the cost. For $26,000 (a refundable initiation deposit that is payable in five equal installments over a five-year period) plus $6,200 for annual dues, an individual gets the opportunity to play on a course that at first blush seems both challenging for the scratch golfer and accommodating, if not easy, for the beginner. "This course looks intimidating, but it's fair," says Hollow Brook's Director of Marketing Renata Fajger, who has won a number of local and national women's golf tournaments. "People think they're playing such wonderful golf because the course is so playable." Corporate memberships are also available and start at a non-refundable $25,000 initiation deposit for two to four memberships with each additional membership costing $4,000 each.
Compare that to what it costs to join other country clubs. There's a $300,000 fee charged for the privilege of joining Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor; a $100,000 initiation fee and $6,195 dues to become a member at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck. There's a $75,000 initiation fee and dues of $9,000 to join Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Briarcliff Manor. Even Wykagyl Country Club in New Rochelle charges a $70,000 initiation fee and $6,855 in dues; Waccabuc Country Club's initiation fee is $55,000 plus $6,640 dues.
But hold on, there's more. When you join Hollow Brook, you also can participate in something called Club Max, a concept founded on the idea of joining one golf club and enjoying membership privileges at others. As a participant of the Club Max program, Hollow Brook members and their guests are allowed to play and socialize at any of these additional clubs: New Jersey National Golf Club in Basking Ridge, NJ; Pine Hill Golf Club in Pine Hill. NJ; Branton Woods Golf Club in Hopewell Junction, NY; Minisceongo Golf Club in Pomona, NY; and Pine Barrens Golf Club in Jackson, NJ. Bergstol, a scratch golfer who readily admits to having a passion for the game of golf and for building beautiful golf courses, says more clubs in the Club Max program are to follow.
Steve Krasner of Briarcliff Manor, a Hollow Brook member and a scratch golfer who was club champion for 16 years at Elmwood Country Club in White Plains, raves about Hollow Brook. "It's the modern-day Winged Foot or Quaker Ridge. It's exceptional and every hole is different—no two holes are alike. It's like playing in Montana, Georgia, and New York all in one." Krasner also appreciates the reasonable price and the fact that he can play at other courses, thanks to the Club Max program. "Three of them are within a half hour of my house, so I move around," he says. Krasner brought along his own foursome to Hollow Brook: his Briarcliff Manor friends Steve Ameil, a former member of Metropolis Country Club in White Plains; Ron Koff, a former member of Willow Ridge Country Club in Harrison; and Norm Lesser joined Hollow Brook at about the same time he did. Each signed up for the five-year, individual initiation deposit plan.
In addition to making it reasonable for anybody who doesn't want to shell out $100,000 to $300.000 or more to join a private Westchester Club, Hollow Brook offers a course on 250 acres of rolling hills and dramatic elevation changes that fit the natural topography of the land to a tee. With trees virtually everywhere and mountains staring at you from every hole, one gets the feeling of being somewhere else—perhaps Vermont or the Berkshires in Massachusetts, or Georgia or Montana, as Krasner mentioned—not Westchester.
With gorgeous views that put you in a serene mood for that highly touted easy golf swing and that make you feel like you're playing at a golf-resort course, it's easy to forget that Hollow Brook is located less than an hour from Manhattan and just minutes from the Bear Mountain Bridge. "The last great private club in Westchester," as the club voice recording enthusiastically announces, is truly a good deal for passionate and knowledgeable Westchester golfers.
Once the Hollow Brook course matures in two or three years (the greens are almost there now), visitors, and perhaps even the members themselves, will be pinching themselves and crowing about the beauty of a course that has dramatic elevation changes, undulating meadows, rolling hills, and the "Hollow Brook" stream, the golf course's namesake, that traverses the property.
Members at Hollow Brook now number 120 and, according to marketing director Fajger, "We expect to be at our maximum of 350 members by the end of 2006. Some of the area's most successful CEOs, professionals, and entrepreneurs have already joined.
Bill Doescher of Scarsdale is a freelance writer who has a 14-handicap at the Scarsdale Golf Club in Hartsdale.
