Meadow Brook Club

The club started out as Meadow Brook Hunt Club in 1881, operating out of Westbury, New York, and in those early days it was all about horses and hounds. A 9-hole golf course was brought into play in 1894, located in Hempstead, New York and the club duly became the 37th member of the newly formed USGA.

The original polo ground and golf course were lost to the Meadowbrook State Parkway extension in the mid-1950s, with this highway cutting straight through the club property, so a new site was selected in Jericho for architect Dick Wilson to set out a new 18-hole layout for the club.

Wilson drew up plans for the course in just six weeks and Troup Bothers of Miami started construction in April 1954. Large-scale earth works were carried out and both irrigation and drainage pipes were installed that summer, with grassing done later in the year. The course was officially opened for play on 4th June 1955.

In October 1955 edition of Sports Illustrated, golf’s poet laureate, Herbert Warren Wind, described Meadow Brook as follows:

“To my tastes, it is the finest golf course that has been built in this country since Bob Jones and Dr. Alister Mackenzie produced the Augusta National back in 1931. While the course is still much too young for the turf to have taken on body and for the whole 18 to have taken on a final aspect, Meadow Brook has struck me from my first visit on as a "born classic" destined to be mentioned in the same exalted breath with Muirfield, Hoylake, Pinehurst No. 2, Pine Valley and the other acknowledged touchstones of architectural greatness.”

In The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, Tom Doak commented as follows: “This is an unusual course compared to other Dick Wilson designs; it is typically long and difficult, but the greens are twice the size of his other famous courses, or anything else on Long Island. Approach shots are given more latitude, but playing long and safe may result in many three putt greens. The scale of it is eye-opening even by today’s big-course standards.”

Brian Silva completed a major tree removal and bunker renovation programme in 2017; he also created four new green complexes and added six new tee boxes.