The PGA Tour's four-week playoff run — the FedEx Cup — tees off Thursday with the The Barclays at Liberty National GC in Jersey City, N.J. If you're not familiar with Liberty National, you owe it to yourself to take a closer look. Yes, the course is ultra-exclusive and ultra-private. But it also stands as a testament to one of the great restoration projects in the game, not to mention one of the best views in golf.
There have been plenty written about the course (one of the best this story from the New York Times), but in essence, the land where Liberty National now sits was once an environmental wasteland, a toxic mix of oil, toxic waste and garbage. The property went through an extensive capping process, an extensive design and construction process (originally, there was virtually no elevation change on the property. All of the contouring and elevations changes you'll see this weekend are manmade), resulting in the layout that will take center stage this weekend.
As you might imagine, the course and the story of its creation have made plenty of headlines this week. Course designers Tom Kite and Bob Cupp even met with the media on Wednesday, and during that session, Kite delivered a great opening message about golf, the environment and — out of nowhere — a shout out to The Environmental Institute for Golf:
Well, obviously we are very pleased to have the tournament here. We have been working on this golf course since 1992, a few years ago, and obviously a lot of water has gone under the bridge, a lot of contamination has been buried, and hopefully we have created a golf course that satisfies the players and satisfies the sponsors.
But more importantly, hopefully it kind of sets an example of what can be done to help revitalize an area. Obviously the New Jersey revitalization has been going on for many, many years and this is just one small part of it, but when you take a contaminated piece of property like this and turn it into a very real asset that brings a lot of exposure and credibility to the city and to the state, we think that's a good thing.
Hopefully that will be a good example, because unfortunately, there are many pieces of property like that all across the United States. And I think as the golf course architects and superintendents continue to work with the Environmental Institute to reclaim some of these properties, it will be hopefully a shining example of what can be done.
Yep, that's my man, Mr. Tom Kite! You can read the entire transcript of the media session with Kite and Cup right here.
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