Golf On Long Island's Rob Dimino has been all over the Island this spring, teeing it up on both sides of the bay on Nassau's south shore, navigating slick greens at Great Rock in Wading River, and finding plenty of fairways in between.
Out at Great Rock, the devilish 11th green may have been renovated a few seasons ago to help players keep their approach shots on the surface, but the nasty left-to-right tilt remains. The 11th is a short par-4 that bends to the right, and one of Dimino's best drives of the season left him just a few paces short of the green -- close enough for the putter to take over. That's when the fun began, he describes:
"Pin was middle left -- I aimed a good 6-8 feet left. Missed just in front of the hole, and I thought I'd have about four feet for birdie. Then it kept trickling...and trickling...and trickling. Wound up about 30 feet away. One of my playing partners was incredulous. Rapped my next putt up the hill and it just jammed on the brakes about three feet from the hole. The power lip-out for bogey that followed was just icing on the cake."
[See this Closer Look post for a description and video of Great Rock #11.]
Great Rock will soon feature a new dining destination to help soothe frustration over ill-timed four-putts. Pure North Fork is opening on site in the remodeled Blackwells space. The focus will be on craft beers, small-batch liquors and local food and wine, with chef Michael Mandleur, formerly of Jamesport Manor Inn, running the kitchen. Pure North Fork is slated to open later this month.
Not far away at Willow Creek Golf & Country Club in Mount Sinai, the equally speedy greens drew praise. "The greens are immaculate," he says, adding that while some courses around the Island have had trouble recovering from the damaging winter, Willow Creek has rebounded beautifully from tee to green.
Back in Nassau, Rob and brother Anthony Dimino continue to be perplexed by the wind at The Golf Club at Middle Bay in Oceanside. The two have combined to play hundreds of rounds across the bay at Lido, and it's agreed that while the wind might shift or ease up at times at Lido, it simply never ceases at Middle Bay. Both posted numbers well above the norm in their most recent Oceanside rounds as the gusts wore them down.
Regarding the new hole orientation, Rob says Middle Bay upgraded when it made the former par-5 sixth hole its new 18th (pictured), even though the long, sweeping dogleg plays right into the teeth of the wind.
"I feel like I always hit two good shots, and I'm still hitting 4-iron into the green," he says.
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