Westhampton Country Club

There are so many classic examples of Golden Age architecture on Long Island that even quality entries from Seth Raynor can be overlooked. Westhampton Country Club is one such example. It features several of the classic MacRaynor templates.

No. 9 is a stiff version of the “Bottle” template, playing more than 440 yards from the back tees. The riskier target from the tee, the thinner, rightward fairway, is also blocked at the front by a burn that flows across the fairway. And, despite the course playing a relatively short 6,350 yards, the Biarritz at No. 17 plays the full 205 yards to its up-and-down putting surface.

There are certainly, as at the majority of Raynor courses, a handful of original concepts that deserve equal attention. No. 9 is on, which seems to imitate the No. 14 hole at the Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon course, with a flying-vee of bunkers pointing away from the green, and challenging players who choose to lay up short of the bunkers that tighten the fairway.

The club does a quality job of feeling wide open despite being fit into a very tight piece of property along the Atlantic coast. Gil Hanse conducted a restoration during 2009.