The City of Glen Cove’s municipal golf course will receive a $2.2 million sprinkler system, overhauling the decades-old apparatus at the 18-hole grounds.
The project is part of a $6.9 million spending plan passed by the Glen Cove City Council earlier this year to address infrastructure issues. The Glen Cove City Council voted 7-0 Aug. 26 to award National Lawn Sprinklers the irrigation replacement contract for Glen Cove Golf Club. City officials have said the course’s archaic sprinkler system is plagued by issues and requires significant maintenance.
“It’s much needed,” Glen Cove Mayor Pamela Panzenbeck said in a phone interview.
The monthslong construction effort is set to begin this fall and is expected to be completed before the golf season resumes next spring, Panzenbeck said.
The new system will better conserve water by being equipped with rain sensors that monitor moisture levels on the greens, Spiro Tsirkas, the city’s director of Youth Services and Recreation, said in a phone interview.
The current system is “so old that we couldn’t even find certain parts for it” when components broke down, he said. It also required the entire system to be drained of water if issues arose in one area of the course.
“Now, every hole will have its own zone,” Tsirkas said. “If something breaks, we don’t have to bleed out the whole system, losing all that water that’s in the lines.”
The golf course was founded in 1972, according to the city’s website, and is open for both residents and nonresidents. Nonresidents pay a higher fee to play the course.
City documents show National Lawn Sprinklers submitted the lowest bid for the project. Another company, Mermaid Industries, bid $2.3 million to complete the work. The city’s engineer estimated the overhaul would cost $2.4 million.
Democratic Councilwoman Danielle Fugazy Scagliola said at the meeting she was “excited that we are taking the next step at the golf course to get it in better condition with that sprinkler system, finally.”
