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After a hiatus, 'Cool Golf Things' is back with a focus on standout individual golf holes Tim Gavrich encounters on his travels.
The more I travel throughout the golf world, the more hidden gems I discover.
I made a late-afternoon tee time at Island’s End Golf Club on a whim, trying to squeeze in a twilight 18 on the day I arrived in Long Island recently. I got far more than I bargained for.
Teeing off at 5:00 pm on a crisp and breezy early-May day put me in a race against the sun. We both won. After mostly flat terrain for the first two-thirds of the course, I clambered up Island’s End’s first hill of consequence to reach the short par-4 15th green and was greeted with a scene I will remember for a long time.
Hole 16 is a bit of a bruiser at 217 yards, but it is also one of the most scenic public golf holes I have ever seen. Standing on the tee just after 7:15 pm, I was treated to the best sunset view I have encountered on any east-coast golf course. The hole clings to the bluffs above the Long Island Sound, gazing back north and west as the spring sun dips, glowing a brighter orange than the Knkcks and Mets can muster.
Beyond its beauty, #16 at Island’s End is a fantastic long par 3, playing downhill to a semi-punchbowl green. It is an exclamation point on a course that, up to that point, mainly traffics in more straightforward challenges.
Having paid just $39 to walk 18 holes at twilight, I could not believe what a great scene I had stumbled upon. It was worth every penny.
Sitting all the way out on Long Island’s North Fork - much calmer than the busy, ritzy Hamptons - Island’s End is not exactly a golf course one gets to by accident. But the 16th hole alone makes the trip worthwhile.
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