Westhampton CC, NY, USA

The Punchbowl par three 3rd lets the golfer know early on that Westhampton is a special course.

The virtues of playing golf on Long Island in the bracing seaside air have long been lauded. With so many world reknowned courses of historic importance, it is a tough neighborhood indeed for a course to gain its fair share of recognition. Such is the case of Westhampton Country Club. Located elsewhere like Cape Cod, this course would be a stand-out.

With many of its members maintaining a primary club closer to New York City, Westhampton is considered a 'second' club. Yet don't let that expression fool you. In some cases, a second club is a shorter course that can even flatter your golf game but such is not the case at Westhampton.

Starting with the 445 yard 4^th hole through the 405 yard 12^th hole where a lay-up off the tee is dictated, the golfer faces a series of searching long iron approach shots into imaginatively contoured greens. Measuring over 6,500 yards to a tight par of 70, Westhampton offers a thorough examination, especially when the typical one-and-a-half club wind blows off the bay.

Believed to be Seth Raynor’s first solo design effort, the greens at Westhampton are 90% plus accurate to their original contouring and size. The golfer marvels at the number of thoroughly original interior green contours such as those found on the 1^st, 4^th, 7^th, 9^th (!), 11^th, 13^th, 14^th, 15^th and 16^th greens (ie half the holes). As good as these nine greens are, Richard Spear, the superintendent at Piping Rock, is even more amazed that all the remaining ones also offer something unique or of interest.

Suffice to say, the greens are first rate but how is the design from tee to green?  While the routing of the course remains faithful to Raynor’s 1914 design, none of the holes remain untouched. Be it from the Depression, the 1938 hurricane, or the work done by various consulting architects, the holes have had this or that done to them. Westhampton could easily be a hodge-podge of architectural styles from different eras.

However, it isn't, thanks in large part to the unifying hand of Westhampton’s Superintendent for over twenty years, Mike Rewinski. Born and raised on Long Island, Rewinski has studied every notable course on Long Island. He has seen how grass face bunkers were built at the turn of century, when and how mounds were employed by the master designers of that era, the size that old greens enjoyed, how the greens were linked to their surrounding  bunkers, etc. 

The bunkers and mounds enjoy an 'old-fashioned flavor' and yet the bunker pictured here was built
by Brian Silva in 1989. Note how Rewinski promotes rough edges, which are
consistent with the course's seaside environment.

Rewinski has successfully translated this local knowledge into the ground at Westhampton. After the club's rebuilding program in 1988/89 with Brian Silva, Rewinski continued the program in house, adding features and changing ones that had been done in the wrong style. In the process, he has restored features to the course that many people would associate with Raynor's work from 1914/5, a sure sign of a job well done.

Though some cross bunkers have been lost through time, particularly on the 4th and 9th holes where it is hard not to lament their demise, plenty of genuine fairway bunkers remain. New bunkers have been added from time to time to preserve the challenge at Westhampton, and Rewinski has seen to it that they are faithful to the Raynor style with flat bottoms and grass faces.

the attractive diagonal bunkering across the 6th fairway

Coordinating the use and appearance of the mounding posed an interesting challenge. Raynor’s original plan clearly shows mounding strategically placed throughout the course, which is unusual as mounding doesn't play as prominent a role in his subsequent designs. Various architects had built mounds over the years at Westhampton but as Rewinski points out, Raynor's mounds have an unnatural, engineered look (as opposed to Ross's more graceful mounds for instance). Purposefully replicating them without appearing too neat and organized is difficult. Through trail and error, and over a period of years, he and his crew have perfected giving the mounds across the entire course this desired manufactured look.

Raynor's plans called for mounds between the 16th fairway and green. The mounds pictured
above are recent additions, though one would never know it.

The picture that is now presented at Westhampton are eighteen holes that are well linked to one another through their common roughed-up mounding, grass faced bunkering and old style greens. The end result is a course that enjoys 'an old-fashioned flavor,' according to Dr. Bill Quirin in The Golf Clubs of the MGA. 

continued >>>

© Copyright GCA 1999 - 2000. All rights reserved.