A Place To Play

Shinnecock Hills and Tuckahoe make up a mecca for golfers, with four world-class golf courses shoulder to shoulder: Shinnecock Hills, the National Golf Links of America, Sebonack and Southampton.

Sebonack is the new kid on the block, opened in 2006 and designed by Jack Nicklaus and Tom Doak, but it’s already developed an international reputation, hosted a Women’s U.S. Open and made the list of the nation’s 100 best courses. Nearby are The National, which dates to 1911, and Shinnecock Hills, founded in 1891, the celebrity courses that every golfer knows and dreams of playing.

Southampton, though, is the overachieving little brother — also 100 years old, this summer, with a less substantial international reputation, but an amazing layout by legendary designer Seth Raynor, and arguably the strongest connection to the community that surrounds it. This, after all, is where most “locals” have found their place to play.

The course underwent a loving restoration a few years back, and playing there remains one of the real joys of living on the South Fork. It’s a private club but eschews most of the trappings of exclusivity: Its membership is collegial and takes steps to make sure interested players of all income levels have a chance to become part of its ranks, through associate memberships and other programs. Its fairways and greens are the gathering place of the men and women who truly keep Southampton going, culturally and economically — not just captains of industry but “firemen and teachers and nurses,” as the story on its anniversary last week noted. And, as the home club for the local high school boys and girls golf teams, it’s the place where many young people first learn the game.

It’s largely because of the deep local roots. Raynor was born in Manorville, and didn’t take a dime for Southampton’s design; sadly, he died a year before his course officially opened for play. Its tees are trod almost exclusively by players with local addresses. Its president, Mark Antilety, is a second-generation member who learned to play there, and its head pro, Louis DeKerillis, is a Southampton High School graduate who grew up in a house along its fairways and used to sneak onto the course to learn the game.

“Most of the people leave their egos in the car when they get here,” Butch Armusewicz, 82, one of the longest tenured members of the club, said last week. It’s not a phrase that seems to fit a conversation about a private golf club. But Southampton Golf Club is special, and as it marks 100 years since its incorporation, the entire community should tip a hat to this institution. In a place where “local” still means something, its bona fides are unmatched.