Brookville has updated its village code to allow for-profit golf clubs to operate on the former Tam O’Shanter Club grounds, incentivizing a possible successor to run the defunct course.
The 18-hole course was sold in 2019 to a developer who planned to build 27 luxury homes on the 148-acre property. But three years later, toxins were found in the topsoil — a discovery that stalled the luxury housing project, village and state documents show.
For the past few years the quiet, abandoned fairways have remained unused and undeveloped, said Brookville Mayor Dan Serota. The village board recently updated an antiquated code that only allowed not-for-profits to run golf courses in the village. The new code allows “for profit membership clubs” to purchase and take over the site, according to village documents, raising the chances the greens can remain a golf course.
“We incentivized it to stay a golf course,” Serota said in an interview. “It’s been sitting fallow for four years; the geese have taken it over.”
“The grounds are in complete disrepair,” he said. “It would cost tens of millions of dollars to bring it up … it would just be ridiculous.”
The Tam O’Shanter Club was purchased in 2019 by New Jersey-based Titan Tam LLC and Segme Tam LLC, according to village and Nassau County records. County property records list the property’s sale at $11.8 million.
The course operated through the summer of 2021 before closing, state Department of Environmental Conservation documents show. The owners of the property, who had zoning rights to develop 27 luxury homes there, hit a roadblock in 2022 following the discovery of arsenic in the course’s topsoil.
An extensive remediation is required to develop housing on the property. That process would have required 11,000 dump truck trips to treat the contamination, Serota said. Keeping the property a golf course wouldn’t require as much environmental treatment. Maintaining the property as a golf course requires “significantly less and safer soil disturbance than a housing development,” the mayor wrote in the village’s October newsletter.
“When we heard that, we said absolutely no way are we going to permit anything like that on our village streets,” Serota said. “And then the developer just stayed quiet for a bunch of years, and didn’t do anything.”
Selling the property to a for-profit operator is the best possible outcome, Serota said. The cost for the village to buy and develop the property would significantly raise taxes for the 700 homes within its borders, making it a non-starter for Serota.
Jeff Wernick, a DEC spokesman, said in an email that the contamination volume was “a common amount for golf courses and apple orchards.” He added that “the property does not pose a significant threat to public health or the environment, and the property was not listed on the State’s Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites.”
The amended code, passed unanimously by the board of trustees, also allows for 10 guest cottages on the site for members only and a new, smaller clubhouse, according to village documents.
Multiple companies have approached the village about buying the property, as long as they’re allowed to turn a profit.
It’s unclear whether the current owners are willing to sell the property. The owners of the property did not immediately respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment.
A new owner and operator would face significant hurdles, said Kevin Kline, director of member services for the Metropolitan Golf Association, which supports golfers and club owners in the metropolitan area.
Competition for memberships on Long Island is stiff, he said.
“It’s keeping up with the club down the block,” Kline said. “Golf is booming, and these facilities are not just golf clubs. They’re pools, they’re camps, they’re indoor simulators, they’re bowling alleys. They’re getting so many enhancements to increase the experience.”
For years, the North Shore of Long Island was a hotbed for golf clubs: At times, supply outpaced demand. However, after COVID protocols helped drive more people to the fairways, Kline said momentum has continued.
“Golf is booming,” Kline said.
Changing course
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Brookville recently updated its antiquated code to allow for-profit golf courses to operate in the village.
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Mayor Dan Serota said the change could encourage a golf course operator to buy and manage the defunct Tam O’Shanter Club.
