Few golfers expected to tee it up at Tallgrass Golf Course this season, but the Shoreham course has a long history of perseverance. It skirted the looming threat of solar-farm development early in the spring, then survived through the summer, as well. In a mid-September column, Newsday's Mark Herrmann reported that the course would be around "at least into November."
But with the warmest days of November now in the rear-view mirror, and with the 127-acre Shoreham Solar Commons project slowly clearing each hurdle in local and state government en route to its destruction of the celebrated Gil Hanse course, uncertainty around Tallgrass is settling in once again.
The solar farm is only awaiting approval from the New York State comptroller, according to Newsday's Mark Harrington. Several Tallgrass staffers have indicated the course is essentially operating on a month-to-month basis. Meanwhile, away from Tallgrass, some have speculated that the course won't see 2017.
Meanwhile, the course announced its fall rates earlier this month in an e-mail that concluded with a vague yet ominous suggestion:
"Play while you still can."
Whether Tallgrass is referring to winter's arrival or the fact that the course's closing has been rumored for more than a year, the announcement's somber tone is nothing new to those who've been following the Tallgrass vs. Shoreham Solar Commons saga since summer 2015. After all, this past April, Tallgrass itself advised those with gift cards to use them quickly before the course went out of business.
Built in 2000 in the midst of Long Island's last golf boom, Tallgrass has been dodging development since at least 2008, when the course proudly announced it was "here to stay" after surviving a similar threat. Whether or not it has enough luck on its side for another triumph remains to be seen.
For a look back at an overview of the planned Shoreham Solar Commons development at Tallgrass, see this post from March.