Golf on Long Island

Long Island Golf Junkies hosting July Social outing at The Hamlet Golf & CC

The Long Island Golf Junkies players group, one of the largest and most active groups in the region, will hold a July Social outing next month at The Hamlet Golf and Country Club in Commack.  Event date is Monday, July 15 with a shotgun start scheduled for 10:00 a.m.  The LIGJ outing is open to all players.

Entry fee is $155 per golfer for 18 holes and cart.  Format is individual stroke play with contests for closest to the pin and longest drive, plus raffles and prizes.  Visit the LIGJ website to reserve spots for singles and groups and for full registration guidelines and details.

The Hamlet is a private club redesigned in the 1990s by Stephen Kay.  It is a par-70 with heavily bunkered fairways and greens and several prominent water hazards.  

LIGJ hosts several formal outings, casual rounds and social/networking meet-ups each season at both public courses and private clubs.  Interested local golfers can become members via the Long Island Golf Junkies Facebook group.

Bethpage, Montauk Downs listed among Golfweek's 2024 Best Courses You Can Play

There are certainties in Long Island golf life — group photos at the Black Course warning sign, wind at Montauk Downs, and Bethpage and Montauk ranked highly in Golfweek's list of the region's top public golf courses.

Golfweek's 2024 Best Courses You Can Play rankings were published earlier this month and Bethpage Black finds itself on familiar ground atop the local list, followed closely by its next-door neighbor Bethpage Red and its New York State sister course at Montauk Downs.  The Best Courses You Can Play list ranks the elite publicly accessible courses in all 50 states.  The three courses are typically locks for New York's top eight with the Red Course and Montauk Downs jockeying for position.  This year the Red Course at #6 edged out Montauk by a spot.

Also of local interest, Bally's Ferry Point (formerly Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point) in the Bronx is ranked third behind only the Black Course and Leatherstocking in Cooperstown.

Bethpage Black is featured prominently on Golfweek's broader lists as well.  The Black moved up one spot to #9 on the national Best Courses You Can Play list, jumping ahead of the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island.  It also held its #26 spot on the Best 200 Classic Courses list, which ranks public and private courses built before 1960.  That list showcases Long Island's enormous depth of internationally renowned golf courses, with three courses in the top 10 (Shinnecock Hills, National Golf Links and Fisher's Island) and a total of 15 courses overall.

For many years, Golfweek included a fourth Long Island course in its annual Best You Can Play — Tallgrass Golf Course in Shoreham.  Tallgrass is gone, of course, but another "lost" course with local ties — sort of — did crack the list.  The resurrected Lido at Sand Valley in Wisconsin lands at #15 on the national list and #2 in the state.  That course is a nearly identical replica of C.B Macdonald's original Lido Club located on Long Island's south shore from 1917 to 1942.

For more on the three Long Island publics, including a Closer Look breakdown of Red #13 (and Tallgrass #8, just for old time's sake), check out the course flyovers via the above links.

[PICTURED: Bethpage Black #5 in spring 2024.]

Citing "unprecedented demand," Bethpage announces changes to reservation system and tee-time policies

Bethpage State Park has heard the ongoing complaints about the fairness and circumvention of its tee-time reservation policies and is now taking steps to address them.

In an email distributed earlier today, Bethpage announced several changes to its reservation system and policies, all scheduled to go into effect next Monday, June 24.  The main change, according to the email, is the creation of a new booking type called "Verified NYS Resident - Bethpage," which will continue to allow tee-time reservations up to seven days in advance.  In order to make this change, the park conducted a months-long audit of its reservation system and removed all duplicate golfer accounts.  Residents in good standing will be automatically reclassified under the new verified booking type.

Starting next week, however, any new registrants, plus golfers who have been locked out due to multiple accounts or violations, will have to verify their resident account by emailing a copy of their NYS driver's license or identification card to the park.

The park cited "unprecedented demand for tee times" as motivation for the system change as well as other policy updates.  Players will now be restricted to eight cancellations in a calendar month to limit the ability to make and transfer tee times.  "Unfortunately, we have seen a trend of many users reserving tee times with no intent of using them, but instead booking for friends, family members and playing partners by trying to coordinate those cancellations," the email said.

Reservations on the Red Course will be limited to one every 14 days, similar to the current restriction on the Black Course, where tee times are limited to one every 28 days.

"We know some of these changes may cause some initial consternation amongst the golfing public," the email said, "but we are hopeful that these changes may allow more users to obtain reservations moving forward."

Newsday: Stonebridge Golf Links ownership withdraws on-course housing proposal

A development plan that would have built 28 additional homes at Stonebridge Golf Links and Country Club in Hauppauge and shortened its 18-hole golf course into abbreviated nines has been withdrawn by ownership, according to Newsday.  All that remains now are lingering questions and concerns about the future of the current golf course.

Newsday's Jean-Paul Salamanca reported last week that Stonebridge representatives sent a letter of withdrawal dated May 7 to the Town of Smithtown's Planning Board, roughly six weeks after a public hearing in front of the board and members of the community.  At that March 20 meeting, attorney David Altman and Islip-based architect Jerry Rumplick presented a plan for new houses along Stonebridge's western perimeter.  To build the proposed homes, Stonebridge asked the planning board to consider amending the longtime covenants that restrict new development on the site. 

The most notable exchange took place near the end of the meeting when board member Rick Lanese pressed Altman to explain how Smithtown residents would benefit from a plan that adds housing to an environmentally sensitive site and negatively impacts the existing Stonebridge course.  Altman said they benefit because the alternative would be total loss of the golf course.

Now that the plan has been withdrawn, that back-and-forth between Altman and the board takes on much greater significance.  Stonebridge representatives declined to comment to Newsday about the withdrawal, Salamanca reported, and Altman has not responded to questions about the golf course from Golf On Long Island.

Stonebridge replaced and redesigned the former Hauppauge Country Club in 1999, at which time covenants were put in place to limit future additions to the 105-home residential community and changes to club membership and the golf course itself.  The two golf courses have occupied the Veterans Highway site since the 1950s.

Residents and neighbors spoke out against the plan at the March 20 meeting, citing concerns over the course modifications, environmental impact, proximity to the adjacent county park and decline in home value.  Under the proposed plan, new homes would have replaced the 17th and 18th holes, and the western half of the current course would have been reduced to an executive-length nine-hole layout.  The eastern half likely would have remained as a separate full-length nine.

Stonebridge's course design pays tribute to renowned early-1900s designers C.B. Macdonald, Seth Raynor and Charles Banks.  Macdonald biographer and historian George Bahto redesigned the previous Hauppauge course to include replicas of holes typically found at famous American and European clubs, making it unique among Long Island's roster of public golf courses.  The 17th hole, which would have been destroyed under the housing proposal, is modeled after Macdonald's "Eden" par-3s.  Other replicas include the Redan at #4, Biarritz at #7 and Hog's Back green at #16.

For more on the course, see the Stonebridge flyover.

SEE ALSO: Proposed homebuilding plan calls for major modifications or possible closure of Stonebridge Golf Links