#seth raynor

[keystoneservice]

Westhampton

[jpandgoldyontheroadagain]

Under the radar, but perhaps not for long

The iconoclastic so-called father of American golf, Charles Blair MacDonald, is a revered character to this day, particularly among the golf cognoscenti – and above all, up here in the northeast where he spent the second half of his life.  C.B.’s name is most often spoken in the same breath as his enduring monument, the National Golf Links of America; perhaps less often in conversations concerning the likes of Chicago Golf Club, Mid Ocean and the Yale University course; and yet less often in connection with a pair of neighbouring courses he designed (with understudy, Seth Raynor) in Locust Valley on New York’s Long Island.  Piping Rock Club and The Creek Club fly very much under the radar as far as I can make out, but I have a feeling that’s going to change in the coming years – a la the ascension of Fishers Island Club to the ranks of the game’s most celebrated ranks in recent decades.  A restoration initiative is under way at The Creek and the ubiquitous Gil Hanse has been engaged to see it through.  From what I saw on Sunday last, the early work is first rate and suggests that the course might yet find an even higher gear.  Credit should also go to the club’s superintendent, whose name escapes me, and who joined The Creek from Pine Valley where I’m told he held an assistant’s post.    I had the privilege of playing both “Piping” and The Creek on my travels in 2010 and was quite taken with both.  For different reasons my memory of them was less vivid than it might have been – haste in the case of Piping, Southsides in the case of its neighbour – and so when the opportunity came to pay a return visit to The Creek, I didn’t need to be asked twice.  (On the way to The Creek I ducked in briefly to say hello to Piping Head Pro, Sean Quinlivan, brother of good friend Gavin from Ballybunion, but did not play).