Piping Rock Club

C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor's 1911 course in Locust Valley, routed around polo fields. It is credited as the first course with a Biarritz hole and includes a Redan with a 12-foot-deep bunker.

Piping Rock was founded in 1911 on Long Island's Gold Coast, an era when polo was the club's main sport. Charles Blair Macdonald got the golf commission but not the whole property: the founders kept the open land below the clubhouse for polo fields. Macdonald routed the course around them, with Seth Raynor running construction and much of the detail work. The name comes from a boulder on an old trail where, by local legend, tribal leaders met to smoke pipes.

Like most Macdonald and Raynor courses, Piping Rock was built around its par 3s. Here Macdonald added a fourth short hole to the Short, Eden and Redan he used at National Golf Links: the Biarritz. Piping Rock's 9th is credited as the first of the type, with a green about 60 yards deep split by a six-foot trench. The 3rd is a Redan whose front-left bunker is about 12 feet deep. Tom Doak has noted that the top-tier pin on the par-5 6th moves scoring by half a shot, and the 15th green has a snaking ridge.

Pete Dye lengthened the course in the 1980s. Tom Doak consulted from 2008 to 2010, and Bruce Hepner took over and in 2015 removed trees, restored cross-bunkers and brought greens back to their original sizes. The Redan, Road and Biarritz holes near the polo grounds are the reason Piping Rock remains in the national rankings. Doak has also credited Dye's work with strengthening the course.

Holes to know

3

Par 3 · 185 yd

A Redan with a front-left bunker about 12 feet deep and a green that runs hard from front-right to back-left.

9

Par 3

Credited as the first Biarritz: a green about 60 yards deep, cut two-thirds of the way back by a six-foot-deep trench.

6

Par 5

A par 5 whose upper-tier hole location can swing scoring by half a shot, per Tom Doak.

15

A green crossed by a distinctive snaking ridge.

Design history

• Mid-1980s: Pete Dye renovation added length
• 2008–10: Tom Doak consulting
• 2015: Bruce Hepner tree removal, restored cross-bunkers, greens returned to original size