94 golfdigest.com | pga preview 2019
and we had guys who had been
in jail,” jokes Seth Cummins, a
Brooklyn attorney.) Although
members were always stick-
lers for the Rules of Golf—“ We
played it down all the time,
even if your ball was in an un-
raked footprint,” one recalls—
they weren’t above bribing
starters to move up their tee
times. In the third year, they in-
vited their first female member,
Patty Ellis, to join the club after
they discovered how she got out
so early. “They were impressed
that I was a woman carrying my
own bag on the Black, but even
more impressed that I paid off
the starter,” Ellis recalls (add-
ing that Bethpage would never
allow such a thing to happen
today).
Then, less than a decade into
its existence, two events shook
the club’s happy-go-lucky
spirit. On the bright, sunny
morning of Tuesday, Septem-
ber 11, 2001, Ken Eichele, a
member from Queens, was
taking the day off from his job
at the Engine 22/Ladder 13 fire
station in Manhattan to play in
a U.S. Mid-Amateur qualifier in
Bedford, N.Y. As Eichele made
the turn, Dave Segot, a fellow
firefighter and club member,
told him that a plane had struck
the World Trade Center, but
that initial reports suggested
it was a Piper Cub. Figuring
the damage would be limited,
Eichele played four more holes
before another golfer in the
tournament delivered the awful
news: “The Twin Towers are
gone.” Eichele rushed off the
course and found a locker room
TV where he watched footage
of the towers imploding in a
mushroom cloud of smoke and
ashes. He raced home to change
and check with loved ones,
then began searching for a way
to get into Manhattan even
though all its bridges and tun-
nels were officially closed.
Eichele finally found a bridge
connecting the Bronx and
Manhattan that had been left
open for fleeing pedestrians,
and inched his car through the
throng in the opposite direc-
tion. Arriving at Ground Zero
at 11 p.m., he spent all night
and morning crawling through
smoking debris and under
teetering steel beams, search-
ing for survivors. Finally, at
2 p.m. the next day, with the
help of rescue dogs, Eichele’s
crew found a woman trapped
in the rubble: Genelle Guzman-
McMillan, a Port Authority em-
ployee who was the last victim
to make it out alive.
Weeks passed before Eichele
had the time or the appetite to
play golf again, but when he did
it was with a new appreciation.
The game helped him cope
with his painful memories and
with the grief of losing ninefire-station buddies who died
at Ground Zero. Eichele’s fam-
ily even stopped teasing him
about all the time he spent on
the links. “I’ll never give you a
hard time about playing golf
again,” his sister said, “because
it’s what saved you.”
Just as the trauma from
September 11 was starting to
subside, the USGA moved in to
take over Bethpage Black forthe 2002 U.S. Open. With all the
improvements and publicity
their home track was receiv-
ing, the club decided it needed
to “gentrify” too, recalls Peter
Cardasis, a Merrick, N.Y., ac-
countant who served as club
president from 2002 to 2012.
It instituted a formal applica-
tion process that required
candidates to have a sponsor
and four other members who
would vouch for their serious-
ness about golf. Although the
club never imposed a handicap
ceiling, it began to attract more
and more scratch-level golfers,
drawn by the chance to play on
the Black and Bethpage’s other
challenging courses, which
were also renovated in the
years before and after 2002, as
well as the kick of competing
against one another.
By 2008, the Nassau Play-
ers had the lowest average
Handicap Index—6.8—of any
club, public or private, in the
nation. Today, a quarter of the106 members carry Indexes of
2.6 or lower, and past and pres-
ent club champions Jonathan
Jeter, a New York City consul-
tant, and Gerard Connolly, an
Irishman from Garden City,
are among the top amateur
competitors in the region. All
this, members point out, even
though Bethpage has a tiny
practice range where hitting
driver isn’t allowed, no short-
game facility and a practice
green without cups and sur-
rounded by menacing “No
Chipping” signs.“These are 100 of the most
competitive golfers I’ve ever
met, but also 100 of the nicest
at the end of the day, when
we’re all at the bar,” says Ellis,
who serves as club secretary
and says she has always been
treated respectfully by the
men. So much so that several
years ago, Ellis persuaded one
of the area’s most avid female
golfers to join the club: Patrice
Franco, a Wall Street executive
and 6-handicapper who sits on
the board of the Long Island
Golf Association and oversees
civilian volunteers for pro
tournaments from Bethpage
to Shinnecock. “I belonged to
a private club that was 15 min-
utes from my house,” Franco
says, “but they wouldn’t let
women play on weekend morn-
ings, and I discovered that I
would rather drive an hour to
play with these guys.”
Ken Eichele retired to
Pinehurst, N.C., where at 67
he still competes in senior
tournaments and plays the
No. 2 course whenever he can.
But Dave Segot, who was with
Eichele during 9-11, is still a
member and still on the job
at the Engine 37/Ladder 40
fire station in Harlem. Segot
doesn’t want to relive that day,
or talk about all the funerals he
has attended for first respond-
ers and firefighters who de-
veloped health problems after
they joined him and Eichele
in searching the Ground Zero
wreckage. But he remains a
loyal Nassau Players Club mem-
ber and has resisted offers to
join private clubs near his home
in Oyster Bay, in large part be-
cause of the comfort of playing
with “regular guys” who have
a unique appreciation of the
escape and sense of community
that golf offers. “Being on a golf
course is therapeutic,” Segot
says, but particularly with bud-
dies who “understand the hor-
rors you see. We know we can’t
wait until we’re old and gray to
have a good time, because we
know how quickly it can all be
taken away.”▶ mixed foursome
From left: snowplow wholesaler
Gino Civiello, former banker
Charlie Sullivan, retired detective
(and Nassau Players Club
president) Mike Pomerico
and former cop Joe Ferrone.