Greetings from Hunting Station, New York and the Eastern Long Island Area!

This page will give you information on golf courses, golf practice and training centers, driving ranges, alternative golf facilities, and golf retailers from Suffolk County, including W. Babylon, Centereach, Huntington Station and Riverhead.

This Area Development is currently available for purchase.

Parmasters Golf Training Centers is the world's first, year-round indoor golf training center franchise that literally guarantees results. If you are interested, and think you might qualify, visit our home page by clicking here, then, of you like what you see, complete an Initial Contact Questionnaire by clicking here.

Meanwhile, hit 'em straight but not too often.

PS We also have information on a featured local golf course, and the latest news from the National Golf Foundation.

For information click on each item below:

1. Golf courses in this area;
2. Golf practice and training centers;
3. Driving ranges;
4. Alternative golf facilities; 
5. Golf retailers;
6. Our featured local golf course; and
7. The latest news from the National Golf Foundation.

1. Golf courses
   
    

   All Courses near Hunting Station, New York

   Click a course for the current weather, course overview, and contact phone number, courtesy the Weather Channel.   Course Name Type Dix Hills Park Golf Course Huntington Station, NY Municipal Hollow Hills Country Club Huntington Station, NY Public Dix Hills Country Club Huntington Station, NY Public The Greens At Half Hollow Melville, NY Private Huntington Country Club Huntington, NY Private Huntington Crescent Club Huntington, NY Private Hamlet Golf & Country Club Commack, NY Private Oyster Bay Golf Course Woodbury, NY Municipal Cold Spring Country Club Cold Spring Harbor, NY Private The Woodcrest Club Syosset, NY Private Heartland Golf Park Brentwood, NY Public Brentwood Country Club Brentwood, NY Municipal Crab Meadow Golf Course Northport, NY Municipal Northport Golf Course At the VA Northport, NY Municipal Indian Hills Country Club Northport, NY Private Muttontown Golf & Country Club East Norwich, NY Private Pine Hollow Country Club East Norwich, NY Private Smithtown Landing Country Club Smithtown, NY Municipal Stonebridge Golf Links & Country Club Smithtown, NY Public Hamlet Wind Watch Golf Course Hauppauge, NY Public Bergen Point Golf Course West Babylon, NY Municipal Meadow Brook Club Jericho, NY Private Gull Haven Golf Club Central Islip, NY Municipal Sunken Meadow State Park Golf Course Kings Park, NY Municipal Mill River Club, Inc. Oyster Bay, NY Private Cantiague Park Golf Course Hicksville, NY Municipal Southward Ho Country Club Bay Shore, NY Private Bethpage State Park Golf Course Farmingdale, NY Municipal Colonial Springs Golf Course Farmingdale, NY Public Cedar Beach Golf Course Babylon, NY Municipal Robert Moses State Park Golf Course Babylon, NY Municipal Sumpwams Creek Golf Course Babylon, NY Municipal Nissequogue Golf Club Saint James, NY Private Glen Oaks Club, Inc Old Westbury, NY Private Old Westbury Golf & Country Club Old Westbury, NY Private Cedar Brook Club, Inc. Glen Head, NY Private Tam O'Shanter Golf Club, Inc. Glen Head, NY Private Brookville Country Club Glen Head, NY Private North Shore Country Club Glen Head, NY Private Glen Head Country Club Glen Head, NY Private Piping Rock Club Locust Valley, NY Private The Creek Club Locust Valley, NY Private The Ponds at Lake Grove Lake Grove, NY Public Peninsula Golf Club Massapequa, NY Public Jones Beach State Park Golf Course Wantagh, NY Municipal Eisenhower Park Golf Course East Meadow, NY Municipal Timber Point Golf Course Great River, NY Municipal Nassau Country Club Glen Cove, NY Private Glen Cove Golf Course Glen Cove, NY Municipal Engineers Country Club Roslyn, NY Private Morley Park Golf Course Roslyn, NY Municipal Wheatley Hills Golf Club Williston Park, NY Private Holbrook Country Club Golf Course Holbrook, NY Municipal Heatherwood Golf Club Centereach, NY Public West Sayville Golf Course West Sayville, NY Municipal Cherry Valley Club Garden City, NY Private Garden City Golf Club Garden City, NY Private Garden City Country Club, Inc. Garden City, NY Private Village Club of Sands Point Port Washington, NY Private North Hempstead Country Club Port Washington, NY Private Sands Point Golf Club Port Washington, NY Private Harbor Links Golf Course Port Washington, NY Municipal North Hills Country Club Manhasset, NY Private Plandome Country Club, Inc Manhasset, NY Private Deepdale Golf Club Manhasset, NY Private Island Hills Golf Club Sayville, NY Private Merrick Golf Course Merrick, NY Municipal Hempstead Golf Club Hempstead, NY Private St George's Golf & Country Club East Setauket, NY Private Fresh Meadow Country Club Great Neck, NY Private Lake Success Village Golf Course Great Neck, NY Private Towers Country Club Floral Park, NY Private

   
   
    

2. Golf practice and training centers
   
   coming soon!
    
3. Driving ranges
   
   coming soon!
    
4. Alternative golf facilities
   
   coming soon!
    
5. Golf retailers
   
   coming soon!
    
6. Our featured local golf course
   
   Course Critic - Ron Whitten, www.GolfDigest.com
   
   Hidden Creek Golf Club, Egg Harbor Township, N.J. and Friar's Head, Baiting Hollow, N.Y.
   
   As a golf course critic, I'm not supposed to play favorites. But I find it hard to be totally objective about the work of Bill Coore. For one thing, he's a good friend. For another, both he and his design partner Ben Crenshaw embrace the historical roots of golf, and reflect it in their course architecture, with a passion that I share.
   
   I first corresponded with Bill back in 1976, first met him in person the following year, at Waterwood National in Huntsville, Texas, where Bill was the assistant superintendent to Gary Grandstaff. They were both trying to break into the golf design business at the time. I was just out of law school, studying course architecture as a hobby.
   
   "Someday I'm going to write a book about golf design," I told Bill.
   
   "And someday I'll be in it," Bill replied.
   
   The 12th hole at Hidden Creek Golf Club.
   Both dreams eventually came true, mine sooner than his, but his a lot more successfully than mine. Bill got his first design job in Rockport, Texas, in the early 1980s. In 1985, he became partners with Ben Crenshaw, but it was nearly four years before they found work. Since then, it's been one hit after another.
   
   What I admire most about the work of Coore and Crenshaw is their effort and ability to avoid stereotyping their art. If you think eroded, gnarly edges are their only bunker style, then you haven't seen their third nine at Southern Hills in Tulsa, where they deliberately imitated the clamshell bunkers of the original 18 designed by Perry Maxwell. If you think low-profile, bump-and-run is the extent of their repertoire, then you haven't played the South Course at Talking Stick in Scottsdale, where their goal was an old-fashioned northeastern course with perched greens and lots of creek carries. (Okay, it's their one course that I don't think works, but I give them credit for trying something different.)
   
   These guys mix it up, and avoid trademarks, better than anyone since A.W. Tillinghast. I got to see more evidence of that in April, when I joined Bill Coore to play their two newest designs. First up was Friar's Head in Baiting Hollow, N.Y., the next day was Hidden Creek Golf Club in Egg Harbor Township, N.J.
   
   I was clearly the E player in our fivesome each day. At Friar's Head, we were joined by club founder Ken Bakst (the 1997 Mid-Amateur champion), the club's professional Jim Kidd (formerly pro of Sand Hills and once an All-American college player from Sam Houston State College of, yes, Huntsville, Texas) and Rod Whitman (a Canadian who also played at Sam Houston State and is now a very fine golf architect in his own right, when not building holes for Coore and Crenshaw). At Hidden Creek, it was Coore, Kidd and me, along with course owner Roger Hansen (who cruised around in one-under-par for the nine he played) and golf architect Stephen Kay (another good friend and fine architect who lives near the course). Hampered by clouded eyeglasses, slick grips, a pinched nerve and a general dislike for the cold, windy, rainy conditions we encountered, I managed mere glancing blows at the ball over my two rounds, the nadir being one hole on Monday afternoon when my driver went nearly as far as the ball, quite unintentionally.
   
   But the company was most enjoyable and the courses were most impressive, and very different from one another. Friar's Head, starting and finishing on the sand bluffs of the north shore of Long Island, moves back and forth from tree-lined dunes to open meadow holes created from old, flat potato fields. Interestingly, Coore used the par 5s to make each transition. The second plays down off a dune, the twisting seventh moves back into them, the 11th out again and the 14th (the only one of the four not headed north or south) traverses a roller-coaster hill to a green backed by an enormous drift of raw sand.
   
   Hidden Creek, chopped from the pine barrens of southern New Jersey, is less diverse. But there is some change of elevation (more than on most courses in the area), and Coore used it to great effect, playing from hilltop tee to hilltop fairway on several holes, then down to greens nestled into gentle glades.
   
   Coore hates it when I compare one course to another, so I make this comparison for descriptive purposes only. If Friar's Head is their Cypress Point (on a oceanside setting with great diversity in terrain and vegetation), then Hidden Creek is their Pinehurst No. 2 (walled by a monoculture of pine trees).
   
   There are other differences. The greens at Friar's Head run the gamut, from a multi-leveled seventh created from existing dunes and a similar one at the ninth created from nothing, to the seemingly flat, tiny 10th green on the far side of a sand hill that in fact is 60 yards deep but just 20 yards wide. Many of the bunkers at Friar's Head are suitably duneslike, with some huge, rugged expanses on the first, fourth, seventh, 11th, 14th, 16th and 18th. The remainder are mostly long strip bunkers, like might be found on a Macdonald or Raynor course. (I wish I could better describe the club's showcase par-4 15th, but we played it in dense fog.)
   
   Hidden Creek's greens are far less severe in their contours and merge seamlessly into their surrounds. Except for a long Pine Valley-like sand scar on the par-5 third, the bunkers at Hidden Creek are more intricate, sneers of sand poking above the surfaces of fairway and green, ringed by moustaches of tall fescue in summer. (Walking off the tee at the par-3 fourth, Stephen Kay asked me what was wrong with the hole. I thought for a minute, then said I could find nothing wrong with it. "Cart path shouldn't be in the picture," he said. "There's no reason why it shouldn't be way to the right, out of view." I looked again. Sure enough, a cart path of crushed seashells curls around in front of the green, for no good reason. Proof, I guess, that even Coore and Crenshaw aren't perfect.)
   
   Which of the two courses do I prefer? Well, this may run counter to the unwritten rules of being a golf course critic, but I think once we've found a couple of superior golf courses, we don't need to pick one over the other. We can enjoy and appreciate both. I will say that I found Friar's Head to be a bit too enamored in its North Shore stuffiness, especially with its blank scorecard, which gives only the par for each hole, but no yardage. (It's the reverse of what Coore and Crenshaw had done at Notre Dame, where the card shows yardage but no par.) I'm all for playing by feel, but some yardages are still essential during a round. The caddie's yardage book has them, and as nearly as I could piece them together, I calculate Friar's Head total yardage is 6,774 yards, par 71 from the tips. The par 71 Hidden Creek is 6,872 yards, according to its scorecard.
   
   When I told Bill Coore how tickled I was that the two courses were so different, his reply astonished me. Most prospective clients don't want something different, he said, so it's worked against him in getting new jobs. Apparently corporate types want their golf courses built just like their yachts: they want just what their buddies have, only better. Maybe it's just as well. Despite having a loyal team of shapers and associates, including Whitman, James Duncan, Dave Axland, Jimbo Wright and several others, Coore and Crenshaw really aren't in a position to mass-produce their golf courses. I'm hoping they continue to just whittle them out one at a time, trying hard to give each its own special character.
   
   The Details
   Hidden Creek Golf Club
   75 Asbury Rd.
   Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey 08234
   Private Club.
   For membership information: 609-653-8011.
   www.hiddencreekclub.com
   
   Friar's Head
   3000 Sound Ave.
   Baiting Hollow, New York 11901
   Private Club.
    
7. The latest news from the National Golf Foundation
   
   Retention in Golf Better than Expected
   
   NGF president Joe Beditz presented the results of a GOLF 20/20-commissioned research study regarding retention in golf, at the 20/20 annual conference on November 15. The objectives of the study were to quantify the retention rate of beginners in golf, see how golf’s retention rate compares to other sports and discover whether golf’s retention can be positively affected and, if so, by what factors. Click here for the story.
   
   NGF Rounds Played
   
   Get connected to the industry’s first Internet-based data collection tool for golf facility operators. Track your own performance and compare it to local, regional and national statistics. With RoundsPlayed.com you can share data confidentially, view information online and generate reports 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
   
   Click here to view map showing regional rounds data for October.

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