Hay Harbor Club

Few courses in American golf occupy a setting quite like this one. Fishers Island sits at the eastern end of Long Island Sound, closer to Connecticut and Rhode Island than to the rest of New York State, accessible only by ferry or private boat. The island is small, private, and deliberately unhurried — a summer enclave where old families return year after year, and where the Atlantic wind is as much a part of the game as any bunker or green.

Hay Harbor Club shares its island with one of golf's most celebrated designs, the Seth Raynor-masterpiece Fishers Island Club, and while that neighbor draws the pilgrims, Hay Harbor serves the community. At par 68, it plays as a shorter, more intimate layout — the kind of course where a good iron game matters more than raw length, and where knowing the ground is a genuine advantage.

The surrounding seascape defines the experience. Salt air, open sky, and the particular light of coastal New England in summer make a round here feel removed from ordinary time.