Steady leadership and direction has helped Tamarack CC stay on course in the demanding New York metro market for 85 years.
City administrators in Greenwich, Conn., founded in 1640, have done an impressive job of preserving much of the town’s historic New England charm, even as its population has grown to over 60,000 and it’s become a favored location for financial firms, because of its easy access to New York City.
Similarly, one of Greenwich’s oldest private clubs, Tamarack Country Club, serves as a good example of how to make the most of traditional strengths while staying a step ahead of fast-changing times. That formula has helped Tamarack, which is marking its 85th year in 2014 (and actually traces its rich history back to 1909 at another site), to maintain a valuable competitive distinction in the New York metropolitan area’s demanding club market.
Tamarack CC AT A GLANCE
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By applying that formula properly, the Tamarack property still offers the same undisturbed tranquility as when it was first developed from farmland—even though it is now surrounded by many signs of New York’s “new world,” including an interstate highway, a major airport (Westchester County), and the other bustling municipalities (Westchester, Rye and Port Chester, N.Y.), in addition to Greenwich, that are strung together along northern Long Island Sound as it runs east from New York City.
Just as the city of Greenwich’s careful and unyielding attention to zoning issues has kept it true to its origins while also accommodating modern needs, Tamarack CC has relied on sound planning and management principles to help it maintain progress through the years. After its original 33,000-sq. ft. clubhouse burned down and was replaced in the late ‘60s, the club realized, as the new millennium began, that it had become an inadequate facility for what its membership now needed.
“We got renovation proposals from three different [club architects],” reports General Manager Brian Gillespie, “and they all said we should just start over.” But this time, starting over didn’t mean just building another exact replacement. In 2007, Tamarack opened a new 55,000-sq. ft. clubhouse on the same footprint, having taken the previous building to the ground. The additional space, accomplished by designing two full levels as well as a sub-basement, helped the club improve culinary capabilities and efficiencies by including two kitchens; doubled the pro shop’s size; added fitness and massage facilities; expanded locker room space; created a larger, 220-person banquet space and a private dining room that doubles as a boardroom; made room for a dual-purpose space in the sub-basement that functions as both a kids’ club and a fitness/indoor golf training area; and provided improved staff offices.
“I had previously worked at a club in Florida [Audubon CC in Naples] that had two kitchens, and it worked well,” says Gillespie, a native of Westchester who came to Tamarack from The Stanwich Club in 2001 and was closely involved with the design of the new clubhouse. “Even though we’re somewhat seasonal here and a union shop, we can still be efficient, because we can now close one kitchen from late October until May.”
The next important upgrade for Tamarack was a new tennis/pool complex, located closer to the property’s entrance, that was completed in 2012. “When I got here [in 2001], Tamarack was still pretty much just a golf club; the pool and tennis programs were secondary,” Gillespie says. But with a need to solidify its standing with an emerging base of a more youthful membership (Tamarack’s current average member age is 48, and the current total membership of 330 can bring 600 children under the age of 16 through the gates, Gillespie says), the club saw that it would be critical to expand its facilities and amenities mix into other recreational areas.
Now, the club has nine new tennis courts (four hard and five Har-Tru HydroCourts) and a 13,000-sq. ft. pool deck that includes a new snack bar, with full kitchen and wait-service, that has provided a big boost to Tamarack’s overall F&B operation (which now totals $2 million in annual revenues, about 70% of which currently comes from a la carte).
“Previously, we had an outside caterer for the snack bar,” Gillespie says. “But now we can do as many as 120 covers for lunch there, and 90 for dinner, on a regular basis. For Memorial Day, the 4th of July and Labor Day weekends, we can serve 600 covers and have 1,000 people at the pool alone.”
Tamarack’s F&B operation also gained momentum after the arrival three years ago of Executive Chef Patrick Vaccariello, who brought extensive experience with noted Manhattan restaurateur David Burke to his first private-club position. “The members loved him immediately and after his first year, we signed him to a three-year contract,” Gillespie says. In addition to introducing popular cooking classes, Vaccariello has also upgraded tasting menus and introduced innovative banquet stations to help attract more wedding and event business. (Tamarack’s diverse membership presents strong opportunities in those areas; Gillespie says it’s not unusual to have first-communion parties and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs being held in different parts of the clubhouse on the same day.)
Uncovering the “Hidden Gem”
While attending to its needs beyond the golf course, Tamarack didn’t neglect its historic layout, designed by noted “Golden Age” architect Charles Banks. An extensive Master Plan renovation, directed by noted restoration expert Brian Silva, was recently completed to enhance Tamarack’s appeal as one of just a few original designs by Banks, who was known as “Steam Shovel Charlie” because of his penchant for moving massive amounts of dirt to create elevated greens and deep greenside bunkers (for more on how Tamarack’s course maintenance staff, led by Superintendent Jeffrey Scott, CGCS, maintains the bunkers, see “Sand Saves”).
In addition to a comprehensive bunker restoration program, the renovation created larger putting-green surfaces and leveled and increased the size of all tees, while adding new forward and championship back tees on many holes. “It now plays again the way it was designed to be,” says Head Golf Professional Bobby Farrell, PGA. “And that design was intended to make it play differently day in and day out. With the larger greens back again, you can be looking at a difference of over 100 yards on some holes, depending on pin placement.”
With the restoration work complete, Tamarack has become more aggressive in spreading the word about all that it now again has beyond its gates and between the still-lush tree line that borders its property, to provide welcome shelter and respite from the much-busier world that lies beyond. But because there was a sense that perhaps Tamarack may have become too sheltered, a public-relations firm that specializes in golf marketing has been retained to help ramp up promotional efforts during the club’s 85th year.
“We always hear that we’re a ‘hidden gem,’ and sometimes it goes beyond that—even when I worked right down the road at The Stanwich Club, I used to hear, ‘Where’s Tamarack?’ ” Gillespie says. “We felt we needed to do more to make people more aware of where, and what, we are.”
Amid all of the changes and improvements that have occurred within the past 10 years at Tamarack, an important constant has been the consistency of management directed by Gillespie, Scott (who has been at the club 18 years) and Farrell, who arrived in 2001 along with Gillespie, but has much deeper ties to the club’s traditions—his grandfather, Johnny Farrell, was invited to be in the first foursome to tee off at the opening of the Tamarack course in 1929, because of his celebrity as the reigning U.S. Open champion (Farrell, later the head pro at Baltusrol GC, beat Bobby Jones in a 36-hole playoff at Olympia Fields CC in 1928).
At the same time, when the new clubhouse was opened, Gillespie saw the need to expand the staff and create a new Facilities Manager position. “It reflects our wanting to be proactive and not wait until things are broken,” he says.
That kind of foresight showed how it could pay off when Greenwich, along with much of the New York metropolitan area, was slammed by Hurricane Sandy in the fall of 2012. “We had decided to go with 100% generator backup for the new clubhouse, and during Sandy, we actually had one of our best periods ever,” Gillespie says. “People were here 10 days straight for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and made this their main place to hang out because we had charging stations and working showers. It was a great example of what a club can become to really help fill members’ needs.”
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