Manorville man charged in $416,500 damage at Pine Hills Golf Club

More than $416,500 in damage at Pine Hills Golf and Country Club in Manorville led Suffolk County police to charge a 24-year-old Manorville man after investigators said vehicles were driven onto the course during two separate incidents.

Police said the damage happened on Jan. 13 and Oct. 11, 2025, at the club at 2 Country Club Drive. Joseph Manzella, of Village Circle East in Manorville, was arrested at 2:17 p.m. Friday on Dawn Drive in Shirley after an investigation by Seventh Precinct Crime Section officers and Seventh Squad detectives.

Manzella was charged with two counts of second-degree criminal mischief, a felony offense, police said. He was held at the Seventh Precinct and was scheduled to be arraigned in First District Court in Central Islip.

The case involves one of Manorville’s better-known recreational properties. Pine Hills Golf and Country Club says it has been family owned and operated since 1965, and its history page says the course was developed over about 10 years into the current 18-hole regulation course and nine-hole Par 3 layout. The club says it was built and designed by the late Andrew Hank Evanish.

Golf-directory listings describe Pine Hills as an 18-hole, par-73 course that opened in 1972, with a layout stretching roughly 6,829 to 7,132 yards depending on the tees. The club says it sits in the Long Island Pine Barrens and markets itself as a public course, underscoring how a property crime of this size can hit a long-established local business, its workers and the members and golfers who use it.

News 12 Long Island reported that representatives at the golf course did not return a request for comment. The charge against Manzella is an accusation, and the case will now move through court in Central Islip as police continue to treat the damage as the result of two separate episodes rather than a single one.