Top whack pricing? It's New York. A pint of domestic swill costs $11.
In a city with a cost of living that doubles the majority of major cities in the US outside the Pacific time zone, a $150 green fee is comparable roughly to an $80 or $90 fee elsewhere. It's still high for a municipal course, but hardly "top whack." I suspect the demand will reflect that it's priced fairly enough.
Also, remember that courses like this almost always have deals for off-peak play. I'd be surprised if there aren't twilight, early season, and late season rates that make for more reasonable opportunities to play the course.
So that means people in Brooklyn have more money for a $150 game of golf? You have lost me with the cost of living argument. I also think an $80 or $90 game of muni golf is well beyond average. Sooooo, at $150, Ferry Point is gonna have to be very special. Is it?
Ciao
Sean,
I don't have a clue as to where you reside, but if one were to use the free-market to determine a price for public golf only 10-20 minutes from one of the greatest concentrations of consumable income and wealth on this planet and then factor even the base cost of land for such an endeavor, $150 might well look like a bargain! Your argument about the pricing is specious and borderline silly.
Let's establish a few parameters before further delving into whether it's "very special," or not. NYC Parks & Recreation will set the baseline values for NYC resident, NY State resident and out-of-state play. No doubt, it'll be a sliding scale wedded to time and date. No doubt, Trump will add other charges (i.e. cart, range balls, forecaddies, etc...). I'd not at all be surprised if airline-like yield pricing was practiced here as well. Regardless, and no matter what is charged, the city will have a negative ROI for decades if not centuries to come.
Look at the local competition. Anything of some quality in the surrounding 40 miles is pricey, and or very difficult to reserve. Let's eliminate Bethpage Black as it's nearly alway fully-booked despite having some availability for those looking for golf's version of the dawn-patrol tailgate. Crystal Springs, Ballyowen, The Mansion at Chestnut Ridge, Pound Ridge or Centennial are probably the only legitimate apple-to-apple comparisons and they are all premium-priced.
It's a fact that densely-populated urban metropolitan areas cannot provide any contemporary municipal golf anywhere near the #'s you pretend to think reasonable.
Now look at the potential user base of over 10+ million people living (I have no idea what percentage are ardent golfers using public golf facilities) within those 40 miles and divide it by the # of available public courses. Shockingly small relative to many other locales, and especially those dotted with CCFAD's charging north of $100. By now you see the point. Ferry Point is a welcome addition to an overpopulated, underserved, public golf market.
Is Ferry Point very special? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I think it's great fun to play and whilst not to be confused with Bethpage or Chambers Bay, it is a very successful effort at converting a dead-flat butt-ugly waste dump into something useful and most certainly will earn a spot into any discussion of better contemporary municipal golf.
Recently, a fair number of folks who are quite experienced with GCA, and used to consistently contribute to this site, played Ferry Point and all thought it a reasonably fun and worthy venue (don't expect all of them to post here as many have left for good reason). A few won't ever go there for personal reasons related to NYC's history of under supporting other courses or the operators self-promotion. Others who played it when I did, posted a while back and were unanimously impressed. Will it be good enough for you? Who knows? Try it for yourself and see, or condemn it sight unseen and declare yourself the Warren Buffett of the golfing public or better yet, the arbiter of all things pictured in two dimensions.
I'll top on the record on one thing though....at $150 it's definitely a bargain for that artisan-biscuit, triple-latte, Brooklyn-based bohemian who is paying $3500 per month for a studio loft in Williamsburg!
Cheers