Rockaway Hunting Club

Lawrence sits on the South Shore of Long Island's Nassau County, in the Five Towns area — a quietly affluent stretch of barrier island and bay where salt air drifts in off Reynolds Channel and the Atlantic beyond. The terrain is flat and links-adjacent in character, with the kind of open exposure that makes wind a constant and serious factor in how any given round actually plays out.

As a longstanding private members' club, Rockaway wears its age gracefully. The par 70 layout rewards course management and shot-making over raw power, a reflection of its Victorian-era roots and the restrained, thoughtful design sensibility of the game's earliest American architects.