Cup gets added dose of patriotism
Golfers will play in shadow of Statue of Liberty
It was your standard U.S. industrial wasteland, built generations ago on the riverfront for easy transport, spewing pollutants for decades and ultimately abandoned for taxpayers to clean it all up.
Paul Fireman saw the chance to change the blighted landscape’s legacy and leave one of his own.
This week, golf ’s biennial Presidents Cup between the USA and players from around the world, but not including Europe, will be played here at Liberty National Golf Club, a remarkable rebirth for a place once seen as hopelessly spoiled.
It was the biggest challenge yet for Fireman, the former Reebok chairman who sold the company and had taken on something new — building golf courses — but the old oil and ammunitions depot on the Hudson River had something going for it.
Amazing views. The Statue of Liberty. Manhattan skyline. Verrazano Bridge.
“The vision that I had was that it had a mile of the property along the waterfront looking at some of the most historic sites in the world, so that was the first motivation,” Fireman told USA TODAY Sports. “The land I knew had to be restored, not all of it, I think there were 25 to 30 contaminated acres that had to be taken out.”
Deemed a Superfund site, much of the reported $250 million spent at the site was taxpayer money to remediate the environmental damage, which included capping some of the material underground and building a golf course on top of it.
“It was a combination of vision, tenacity and stupidity, a major task in my life that was very consuming,” Fireman said. “It’s a legacy project in my life, something that will stay for a long time to come and people will enjoy it. The irony is I play less and less, and that’s too bad, but what can you do?”
RE-CREATING NATURAL
Most golf course designers these days pride themselves on working with the property, finding natural routes along rolling hills and bodies of water to create holes that seem to emerge from the landscape.
That was not going to work at Liberty National. Once the site was remediated, virtually all the land was at sea level, Fireman said.
Fireman’s son, Dan, was the on-site project manager. They brought in more than 3 million cubic yards of dirt — 200 truckloads a day for more than a year — with construction taking more than six years.
More than 5,000 trees brought in. Wetlands areas protected. Vistas created. As one walks the course now, it’s almost hard to believe.
“Everything you see here,” said Dan Fireman, standing atop a hill with the golf course behind him, “it was all built.”
‘IMPOSING, STUNNING’
Liberty National opened in 2006 and hosted its first PGA Tour event three years later — and was immediately panned by several pros. Small greens, difficult landing areas, unfair contouring. It perhaps should not have been a surprise given the architects — Bob Cupp and tour pro Tom Kite — had to create everything about the course.
Sensitive to player feedback but also enamored with Liberty’s stunning backdrop in one of the most-populated golf meccas on the planet, PGA Tour officials brought in their architect to work with Cupp and Kite on a remodeling of Liberty National, completed before the course hosted its next Tour event in 2013. Some greens were redone, but most of the changes were less noticeable.
“Like any painting, you work on it to get it to its perfection,” Paul Fireman said. “You have to play it, and it has to be played by tournament people. They’ll point out the little things, like how a ball lands on a green, is a trap in the right place, things of that nature.”
Phil Mickelson, a member of the U.S. Presidents Cup team who played the course in 2009 and 2013, praised both the changes and how the course now plays.
“When Liberty National was first introduced, the rough was so thick that it didn’t let the course shine,” Mickelson told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s a secondshot golf course just like Augusta National, so when they went to a first cut like Augusta National, Liberty’s greatness came out.”
Jason Day, making his fourth Presidents Cup appearance for the International team, told USA TODAY Sports the course “will set up great for a Presidents Cup.”
“It’s imposing, it’s stunning, it’s beautiful and it’s pretty impressive,” Day said.
The PGA Tour clearly believes the course has arrived, agreeing to a 25-year deal that calls for Liberty National to host several events, with the Northern Trust up next in 2019.
LIBERTY’S MESSAGE
It will not go unmentioned this week that this semiglobal sporting event played in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty comes at a time of division in the U.S., with some NFL players using protests to raise awareness of racial inequities in the United States and President Trump criticizing those players.
Trump fired off Twitter comments calling for any NFL player to be fired if he does not stand for the national anthem during pregame ceremonies. The president also appeared to mock NFL officials who enforce new rules aimed at increasing player safety, drawing a pointed response from the league itself.
“There is a very patriotic feeling when you play Liberty National because you see the Statue of Liberty. You can’t help but feel your patriotism,” Mickelson said.
Don’t look for protests from professional golfers at Liberty National, but it’s just as unlikely you’ll hear criticism of the NFL players who are choosing to speak out.
Someone will no doubt seek inspiration from the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, so here it is: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
Such eloquence is rarely seen on Twitter.
MODERN TIMES
Liberty National is a highly exclusive club, with the fee to join running hundreds of thousands of dollars. Dan Fireman, 45, interviews every prospective member. But the idea is not to acquaint neophytes with a labyrinth of rigid club rules, it’s to make sure they understand the culture is different at Liberty.
There is no board handing down rulings. It’s not owned by a corporation or investors, but by a family.
“Most courses have an aged membership and are constantly fighting to replace them,” said Paul Fireman, 73. “We have young people; it’s a whole different culture here. It’s not about rules.”
The average age of a Liberty member is right around 40, Fireman said, and the club wants to Presidents Cup captains Steve Stricker, far left, and Nick Price, far right, are joined by Dan and Paul Fireman. accommodate their lifestyles. “The younger person wants to play a faster round, they don’t want to be away from their family as much, and they don’t want all the politics that comes with a club.
“They don’t want to feel that because they joined five years later, they are a second- or thirdclass citizen, and I don’t, I treat everyone equal.”
‘PART OF OUR LEGACY’
With the Presidents Cup at Liberty National this week, one might think the Firemans are keen on landing a major championship — a U.S. Open or PGA Championship.
Perhaps someday, but Paul Fireman is focused on events for younger players. Liberty National already participates in First Tee, a program that introduces golf and its inherent values to young people, and has hosted junior competitive events.
“I would love to have a boys or girls U.S. Amateur; I’d like to have a Walker Cup here,” he said. “These events are not moneymakers and they don’t have tens of thousands of people, but they are the underpinning of golf, the true credentials.”
Dan Fireman says those aspirations are “part of who my father is. He grew up learning golf as a junior, he taught me golf as a junior, so it’s part of our legacy that we want to give back to the game of golf. And Liberty is really an expression of that. … It makes my father happy, it makes my family happy.”
It’s also an example for other communities to take note of, he said.
“There are plenty of locations around the world that could be turned into something really special, this is no exception. I think that fact that this was a blighted piece of property, that had been blighted for almost a hundred years, and it could be in such a beautiful location, on the water, close to New York City and in the most populated area in the United States, it’s really a gift to be able to turn it into this incredible golf course.”