Playing for more than par at Inwood

When Kevin Stanya surveyed Inwood Country Club’s 18-hole golf course after Hurricane Sandy, the course superintendent saw damage he hadn’t witnessed in his 30 years of working at the club on Peppe Drive in Inwood.

However, the community native who began working at the club when he was 12, went right to work repairing the course. “There was tons of overtime as my staff and I worked around the clock from dusk to dawn,” said Stanya, a 1989 graduate of Lawrence High School.

In addition to losing all 18 irrigation field controllers valued at $135,000, 130 trees were knocked down by Sandy. There are up to 15 spots where the grass is under repair, but Stanya said that 30 to 40 of those exist on a typical course. “We fertilized the heck out of the place and seeded it,” he said.

That hard work not only restored the course, but earned Stanya and staff the appreciation of club president Peter Davidson. “Kevin and his staff performed a miracle,” Davidson said. “The entire golf course has been in play since the beginning of March, and there are very few areas that show any effects from the storm.”

As the season gets into full swing, the pro shop and the clubhouse that also suffered damaged in Sandy have also been repaired. New exercise machines command space in the repaired gym area. The tennis courts are open and so is the Inwood Beach Club, which is three miles from the Inwood club that has gained 32 new member families propelling membership to about 425.

“We are getting people from Brooklyn and Manhattan who hear about us through other people,” said Heidi Chriest, the club’s membership director, adding the club works with Chelsea Piers sports center and Kidville (an upscale children’s educational program) in seeking new members.

Golf is not the only activity or attraction drawing new members, Chriest said. It’s the beach club, along with the 15 rooms and nine suite for members. Chriest made it point to say the suites are fully booked.

The historic golf course — it hosted the 1921 PGA Championship, won by Walter Hagen, and the 1923 U.S. Open, won by Bobby Jones — still needs repair at the 14th tee, where a portion of the ground gave way in Sandy. To mitgate flooding on the course, the club will undertake a berm project to create barriers by the water holes. It’s expected to cost between $300,000 and $400,000.

Also the legendary Hagen’s Willow — a group of pro golfers paid to have the tree transplanted from the 16th hole to a spot near the 18th to block Hagen’s approach in ’21 — was lost in the storm. That tree will likely be replaced, but Davidson said only a few of the felled trees were strategic.

“Our historic golf course is a combination of links and parkland holes, and through our golf course architect, Tom Doak, we are attempting to make it even better,” Davidson said. “On the links holes, which every golfer likes to play, fewer tress are the goal, and the increase in light and air is also is very good for our greens. Our members love the changes.”