Might be the coolest golf course money can buy.
That’s what it took to make Liberty National a reality, it took money, a lot of it and a lot of time.
Paul Fireman was a visionary back in the late 70s. He bought the U.S. distribution rights for British company Reebok. When the company got in financial trouble, he bought the whole kit and caboodle. In 2006 the company was sold to Adidas for $3.8 billion and Fireman walked away with $700 million.
Along the way he eyeballed what had become basically a toxic waste dump in Jersey City. It had been a landfill, an oil-storage facility, a munitions storage facility. There were decaying warehouses, rusted automobiles and a lot of bad stuff on the land, especially the oil that had seeped into and polluted the grounds. It took time but Fireman managed to buy the property from the Rockefeller family and the Gambino family. Yeah, those Gambinos.
There were 160 acres and a mile of coastline in north New Jersey with that magnificent view of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline.
He hired Bob Cupp and Tom Kite to design the course. It took three million cubic yards of fill. Seventy-thousand truckloads of sand were brought to the property. The elevation was raised 50 feet. All this after the extensive environmental cleanup.
When it was all over, it was a bank-buster. Total cost was in the neighborhood of $250 million, including the 60,000 square-foot clubhouse that cost $60 million.
Initiation fee to join the club is a cool $500,000. A drop in the bucket for a hedge-fund manager or a high-roller like Phil Mickelson, who is a member. Add hefty dues and you’ve got yourself a pretty exclusive club frequented by Wall Street types, the big ones.
That’s the scene for this week’s Presidents Cup matches. The views are spectacular and you can take a look and see what kind of course $250 million buys.
And yes, there was no budget.
