Greater New York City is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to a great many things – food, entertainment, sports, stop me any time. Golf is no exception. Shinnecock hosting yet another epic U.S. Open was only the beginning. Ancient and storied Golden Age masterpieces abound from the tip of Long Island to the hills of the Hudson River and the sandy pines of Jersey. Happily, a few modern instant and forever classics also have blossomed in their shadow. Here is one definitive bucket list of never miss courses in what could be the greatest population of top courses in America.
THE GOLDEN AGE CLASSICS
NATIONAL GOLF LINKS OF AMERICA, Southampton, NY
Truly the font from which all true golf course architecture in America flows. Golf architect Charles Blair Macdonald, himself a superb player, talked the talked and then walked the walk at the course that lays directly adjacent to Shinnecock. He told the world he would build the best course in America and then went out and did it. Perhaps the first pastiche – “tribute course” – ever designed, the holes were all modeled after famous strategic holes from Europe, mostly the U.K. Macdonald worked with Seth Raynor until 1925 before retiring. Raynor them hired Charles “Steamshovel” Banks as his second, continuing the Bloodline. These three giants went on to design roughly 50 courses across the country and as far as Bermuda, all rotating about 27 of the hole designs they imported from across the globe. We will visit a fistful below. Others include Monterey Peninsula Country Club, Yale, St. Louis C.C. and Pete Dye’s favorite course, Camargo in Cincinnati.
ST. GEORGE’S GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB, East Setauket, NY
Just northwest of National, not far from Stony Brook, Gil Hanse brilliantly restored a 1917 Devereux Emmet design that shatters expectations. The wild, out-and-back routing tumbles and rumbles through, around, and sometimes directly over some of the most rugged terrain in Long Island. Playing the course, you can’t believe you’re in Long Island and not the northwest of England. Emmet’s par-5s are always showstoppers and the three at St. George’s are all-world.
GARDEN CITY GOLF CLUB, Garden City, NY
Perhaps Devereux Emmet’s magnum opus, glorious Garden City with its tilted, inverted saucer greens, incomparable history have dazzled golfers from ar4ound the globe since 1899. Site of the 1902 U.S. Open won by Scotland’s Laurie Auchterlonie, the course ends on a sparkling Eden hole par-3 with its green abutting the clubhouse. Site of the yearly Travis Invitational, the course plays to the unusual par of 73 – four par-5s, but only three par-3s.
ROCKAWAY HUNTING CLUB – Lawrence, NY
One of the best kept secrets in golf, one of the hardest courses to get on, and one of those courses that doesn’t like people to know how phenomenal it really is, Rockaway Hunting Club has a sterling, unique, and bifurcated architecture. Nine of the holes are pristine Devereux Emmet, featuring all his fascinating greenside mounding and bunkering. The remaining nine holes constitute the only oceanside property the great A.W. Tillinghast ever designed on. Marvelous angled tee shots played strategically over portions of Long Island Sound, while others hug the shoreline. One of the greatest days off golf of my life. But you can’t tell anyone.
WINGED FOOT GOLF CLUB – Mamaroneck, NY
The Yankee Stadium of Golf but also the Graveyard of Champions, Winged Foot’s famous and fearsome West Course has hosted six U.S. Opens since i1929 when Bobby Jones won his third of four U.S. Open titles. The East Course is every bit as tough as the West and is prettier than the West, especially the gorgeous but treacherous par-3s. The 17th in particular features a green shaped like a curled-up potato chip, with rugged fall-offs in every direction. With both courses designed by A.W., Tillinghast, might Winged Foot boast the greatest 36 hole facility in America?
SLEEPY HOLLOW COUNTRY CLUB – Sleepy Hollow, NY
If I had to take the time to truly tell you, Dear Reader, how incomparable Gil Hanse’s restoration of Sleepy Hollow to Charles Blair Macdonald’s design principles, we’d be here until the Masters. Formerly, containing six holes designed by Tillinghast after a land swap erased Macdonald’s holes at 8-13, Hanse rebuilt that stretch into a contiguous whole that Macdonald himself would marvel at. This course was built for Rockefeller, Astor, and Vanderbilt. If they were alive today, they would heartily toast not only Hanse, but all the members for the remarkable work Hanse put in replicating something Macdonald might well have imagined.
FORSGATE COUNTRY CLUB, (BANKS COURSE) – Monroe Township, NJ
The last course designed by the Bloodline of Macdonald, Raynor, and Banks is without doubt one of their finest and most underrated. As if he knew this was the end, Banks emptied put the arsenal, especially at the par-3s, all of which are museum pieces. The 272-yard Biarritz at 17, for example, features an 84-yard deep green with a thumbprint in its back half, a six foot deep, 25-foot wide swale and mounds at all four corners. The gargantuan Golden Age bunkers are to be avoided at all costs, especially ones with names like Black Lung Bunker, The Sea of Tranquility, and Large Marge.
FENWAY GOLF CLUB – Scarsdale, NY
Designed by A.W. Tillinghast, Fenway has been dubbed “Little Winged Foot” and the name is true to form, both in terms of geography and golf strategies. Built by Tilly in 1924, Fenway has been one New York’s pre-eminent golf clubs since its opening. Tiny, wickedly sloping greens, cavernous bunkers, and 240 acres of rolling terrain result in a layout that features some of the most varied green complexes in the country.
The par-3 holes vary in length by over 100 yards, from the diminutive fourth at a paltry 130 yards to the brutish sixth at just under 250. Since 1997 Gil Hanse has been advising Fenway Golf Club on course restoration.
THE MODERN MASTERPIECES
FRIAR’S HEAD GOLF CLUB – Riverhead, NY
Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw’s instant classic and forever masterpiece takes their minimalist design principles and loving ly layers it onto a sparkling Long Island setting. The front nine was a former potato field with little elevation change, but now features some of the most interesting angles and bunkering found on and C&C course. The entire back plays along the cliffs above the Long Island Sound and builds to a rousing crescendo.
SEBONACK GOLF CLUB – Southampton, NY
What do you get when you combine Jack Nicklaus’s star power, Tom Doak’s design brilliance, and the plot of land adjacent to Shinnecock and National? You get Sebonack. Developer Michael Pascucci purchased 300 waterfront acres overlooking the Great Peconic Bay from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for $42 million. He then locked Doak and Nicklaus in a room for over an hour to iron out Jack’s grudge against Doak from when Doak used to shade Jack’s golf course designs in print.
Both the course and the terrain are superb; Pascucci got exactly what he’d hoped for, a worthy rejoinder to the other great courses in the region.
BAYONNE GOLF CLUB – Bayonne, NJ
Designed and constructed in 2006 and facing every logistical and permitting nightmare, Eric Bergstol defied the odds and designed a legit UK links in the shadow of the Manhattan skyline. And he did it in style! The routing rumbles over having fairway undulations amid fields of fescue, gorse, and juniper. Talk about opulent, players can opt for a ferry fr4om lower Manhattan for transport to the course, h9t floating golf balls at the oceanside practice range, and enjoy lunch in a tower rotunda 200 feet above the fairway floor.
In a quest to equate the nines, much like we saw at Royal Birkdale for this year’s Open Championship, new changes to holes four, six, and nine have made the front nine play harder than when the course opened in 2006. Bergstol’s magnum opus – he has developed non less than 12 courses in the northeast and mid-Atlantic – Bayonne is deserving of even more than the already fervent accolades it has received these last 20 years. That course is a sure fire instant classic anywhere, but across the water from Manhattan? Sheer, unparalleled genius. And Bergstol designed every blade of grass himself.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
NORTH SHORE COUNTRY CLUB, THE CREEK CLUB, and PIPING ROCK, Long Island, NY
All three courses were originally designed by the Bloodline of Macdonald, Raynor, and Banks. Tom Doak’s restoration of North Shore is particularly marvelous.
When not reporting live from major sports championships or researching golf courses for design, value, and excitement, multiple award-winning sportswriter Jay Flemma is an entertainment, Internet, trademark, and banking lawyer from New York. His clients have been nominated for Grammy and Emmy awards, won a Sundance Film Festival Best Director award, performed on stage and screen, and designed pop art for museums and collectors. Twitter @JayGolfUSA
