A simple card game between friends a half-century ago spawned a nine-hole golf course with a trailer for a clubhouse at the end of a dirt road in Manorville -- a dusty trail that only a handful of golfers bothered to traverse at first. That's the story of Rock Hill Golf & Country Club, which survived, expanded and is now preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary, as told by Mark Herrmann this week in Newsday.
Since its humble beginnings on a remote Manorville parcel purchased by a group of 16 founding members, Rock Hill has evolved into one of Long Island's most dependable public golf courses. Manorville itself grew around the course and its original makeshift facilities. "When [original greenskeeper Roger] Tooker moved his family into a house on the property, there were no neighbors for miles," Herrmann says. "Nor were there many golfers."
Luckily for the investors, they sat down to play cards at a time when the golf-course industry on Long Island was expanding. A wave of new golf courses, both public and private, opened for play in the early 1960s. Within the next decade, Nassau and Suffolk counties went all in on golf by building a handful of new courses or converting old clubs into municipal facilities. Long Island golf was in the midst of a second wind after the downturn of World War II and post-war land development, and Rock Hill, among others, reaped the benefits.
These days there are plenty of golfers making there way along Clancy Road, a two-lane path seemingly as narrow as the rough-choked fairways that await on both sides of the course's hilltop clubhouse. Only three Long Island public courses are longer from the tips than Rock Hill, and thanks to its length, elevation changes and thick rough, just two -- Bethpage Black and Montauk Downs -- are more difficult according to slope rating. Nevertheless, Rock Hill has become one of the most popular destinations on the Island for charity outings.
Rock Hill was designed by Francis Duane, and as Herrmann describes, it has been a launching point for many of the Island's golf pros and managers.
The place has been good training ground, especially for assistant pros: Art Silvestrone went on to play the Senior PGA Tour, John Schob became head pro at Huntington Crescent Club, Leo McMahon and Jason Scharf are general managers, respectively, of Lawrence Yacht & Country Club and Swan Lake Golf Club. Former Rock Hill head pro Tom DeBellis left for a long run at Pine Hollow. Tooker's son Steve is superintendent for Suffolk County's municipal courses. -- Mark Hermann, Newsday, 9/17/2015
The course will celebrate its 50th anniversary next month with a dinner in the club restaurant, which stands on the site of the original trailer, Herrmann says.
For more on Rock Hill, check out the course flyover.
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