robbers, besieged golfers quit playing in traditional foursomes and instead ventured forth in football-team-sized units. Some players added an extra club—a night stick—or tucked tear gas spray into their golf bags." Years later, one writer recalled that dozens of the course's trees died, and "flagsticks were reduced to broken bamboo poles stuck into the ground." Weeds overgrew the course, and golfers would wear long-sleeved shirts to ward off against the city's insufficient mosquito repellents. Homeless squatters moved into the park, while courses fell into disrepair, replaced by dirt tracks and "huts and forts" built by neighborhood kids. In 1985, the city licensed control of the courses to Los Angeles-based American Golf Corporation for 60 years, leading to their restoration. Other parts of the park also fell into disrepair, such as Vault Hill, whose headstones and crypts were vandalized in the 1960s. As early as 1962, a New York Times reader wrote of vandalism on Vault Hill. A lack of annual maintenance of the park's jogging tracks and bridle paths had caused them to erode and become overgrown at some places. In 1978–1979, NYC Parks performed a wholesale renovation of the park's eroded and dilapidated bridle paths and jogging tracks. The Parade Ground remained popular, and the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera performed in the field during the summer. However, it too had deteriorated because of intensive use: the grounds' topsoil had eroded away and the sidewalks started to buckle. In 1978, the Perrier Company donated a fitness trail consisting of 12 exercise machines to the park; there were originally supposed to be 18 machines, but the extra six machines were deemed unnecessary. Two shuffleboard courts were also installed in the Parade Grounds the same year, but went unused because of a lack of playing equipment. Improvements In response to studies and accounts that showed the bad condition of the lake, the state restored the fish population of the lake in 1978. In 1977, the Bronx Borough Board created a special committee to oversee and develop plans for improving Van Cortlandt Park. The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park soon came up with its own suggestions to improve the park. After the parcourse for the parade grounds was approved in 1978, the New York City Department of Parks promised to cooperate on the Van Cortlandt Park improvement plans. The 1979 Eisland plan also detailed suggestions for park improvements. This culminated in