Fishers Island Club

Overview: Fishers Island Club is a highly exclusive sanctuary of "old-school" golf, located on a narrow, 9-mile strip of land at the eastern end of the Long Island Sound. Frequently described as a masterpiece of the Golden Age, the course is unique in that almost every tee and green offers a view of the surrounding saltwater. Designed by Seth Raynor, the layout is a definitive collection of "template holes" that have been perfectly adapted to the island’s rocky, rolling terrain. With its firm, fast conditions and a total lack of modern commercial polish, Fishers Island feels like a private, ocean-bound museum where the strategic ideals of the game are preserved in their purest form.

History: In the mid-1920s, the Ferguson family sought to develop the eastern end of Fishers Island into an elite residential community. They commissioned Seth Raynor to design a course that would be the crown jewel of the island. Raynor, the protégé of C.B. Macdonald, died shortly before the course was completed in 1926, leaving his associate Charles Banks to oversee the final touches. The club has since maintained an aura of intense privacy and has famously resisted the urge to modernize or lengthen the course, preferring to keep the focus on Raynor’s original strategic vision. For decades, it has served as a quiet retreat for the Northeast’s established families, far removed from the public eye.

Did You Know? Fishers Island is essentially a collection of the greatest hits of golf architecture. It features perfect renditions of the "Redan," "Biarritz," and "Punchbowl" templates, but it is perhaps most famous for its "Road Hole" (the 2nd), which utilizes the natural topography to create a challenge that many architectural critics consider superior even to the original version at St Andrews.