By Mark Herrmann
For 100 years, Southampton Golf Club has been proud of its prime location, which has nothing to do with geography. The site that really matters is the special place the club held in the heart of Seth Raynor, whose imprint is as prominent now as it was when he designed the course.
Raynor was a prolific and accomplished golf architect who produced top layouts all over the country. But he was a member at only one, the club near his house and the one a mile from his final resting place in Southampton Cemetery.
Just as important to the club, as it celebrates its centennial year, is another kind of location: It always has been right at home in its community. General manager Craig Ruhling cites the legacy of financier Charles Sabin, a local resident who donated the first 93 acres in 1925: “He really wanted this town to have a golf course for the townspeople. That was his wish, and he made it happen.”
The club remains just that way, despite the wealth and traffic that have flooded the Hamptons since then. Dave Greene, who grew up across from the ninth hole, then held numerous jobs at the club, became a member and was green chairman during the 2010 Raynor restoration, says: “To this day, I tell people, this is a club where you pull in the parking lot and there are pickups and Ferraris parked next to each other.”
Of course, sheer geography does count, too. Southampton Golf Club is right next to Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, which is right next to the National Golf Links of America, which is right next to Sebonack Golf Club. The middle two are icons, and the much younger Sebonack already has hosted the U.S. Women’s Open. All told, it is perhaps the most conspicuous contiguous stretch of golf in the world.
But Southampton does not define itself by what’s next door. “We walk to our own drummer,” says club president Mark Antilety, the son of a member, father of two members, and grandfather of a 4-year-old who has just begun lessons.
That feeling is flowing this year. There was a Roaring Twenties-themed casino night, a 640-person gala and a hickory-shaft tournament/clambake. The club hosted the Met Junior Championship Sponsored by MetLife (won by Jonathan Weinberg over his brother Alexander in the final) after having treated the competitors to a member-guest outing. It is publishing a centennial journal. It will accept the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association’s Club of the Year Award.
Members continued a Ryder Cup-style series against Southampton Golf Club in England and rekindled the long-dormant Sabin Cup, a match against National Golf Links. The latter contest revived interest in the National member who set the foundation for a local people’s club.
Sabin was a sportsman who, according to Southampton Town archives, began his landmark finance career as a baseball “ringer,” hired to pitch for an Albany bank’s team. The bank liked him so much it kept him on. Within 20 years, he had become the board chairman of Guaranty Trust. He and his wife Pauline built a lavish estate, Bayberry Land, on property that now is Sebonack Golf Club.
Sabin was a golf enthusiast who installed a path from his home to the National. He was treasurer of the USGA and belonged to more than 20 clubs, including founding membership in a notable Southern one.
“A couple of years ago, I had the real great treat of being invited to play Augusta National,” Antilety recalls. “We’re in the clubhouse and I see there’s a Wall of Fame. There’s Charles Sabin on the wall. At the bottom it says, `Charles was responsible for the founding of a golf club on the East End of Long Island.’”
In the early 1920s, a corporation had planned to establish a “Southampton Country Club” amid stunning vistas on Cow Neck, along Peconic Bay. But the proposal was blocked by people opposed to building a course on pristine acreage. So, Sabin came through with land on what is now the busy County Road 39 — part of the main South Fork thoroughfare.
What set the tone for a celebrated 100-year run was the new corporation’s decision to hire Raynor. A Princeton-educated civil engineer from Manorville, about 20 miles west, he had no interest or background in golf before he was hired by C.B. Macdonald to survey the National Golf Links property (“He scarcely knew a golf ball from a tennis ball,” Macdonald said). Macdonald nonetheless saw enough in Raynor’s professional skills to put him in charge of construction. He did the same at Piping Rock, Sleepy Hollow, Lido, and others.
Raynor established his own firm and designed nearly 90 courses in 13 years. Having embraced Macdonald’s penchant for recreating original golf architecture from Scotland, England, and Ireland, he crafted “template” holes on his courses.
The architect never got to play any of those holes at Southampton. He died at 52 of pneumonia before the club opened. “It sounds like he overworked himself, especially when you think about what it was like to travel in those days,” says Greene, who became a Raynor fan and scholar while working for years under longtime general manager Joe Gregor.
Greene was among the members who were unhappy that the layout had taken a sharp turn away from Raynor during a “beautification” and “modernization” push in the 1960s — many trees were planted, bunkers were enlarged.
Under Butch Armusewicz, who was president for one-fourth of the club’s history, the club launched a 10-year restoration campaign led by Brian Silva, a Raynor expert. The consensus is that the course currently is one the architect would recognize and appreciate.
It retains the spirit that Sabin and Raynor instilled. “We’re proud to say we’re not a country club,” Greene says. “We’re a golf club.”
Golf is enjoyed and promoted, as it was under Met PGA Hall of Famer Bob Joyce, the pro emeritus who still plays there several times a week. Junior program alumni include Bruce Zabriski, who reached the PGA Tour, and Fred Knoebel, Dave Gosiewski, and Tom Holdsworth, who became PGA-certified club pros.
De Kerillis and his assistants (Brett Fanning, Jason Russell, and LPGA Tour member Cindy LaCrosse) carry the torch, the way superintendent Steve LaFazia has followed Jimmy Choinski and predecessors like Bob (Hook) Williams, who went on to a long career at Maidstone Golf Club in East Hampton.
Southampton Golf Club is proud to be a good neighbor, especially when the U.S. Open comes within a few feet. Shinnecock accommodated Southampton’s members with a special entrance on the clubs’ common border in 2018. Ruhling says members watched the telecast on Southampton’s porch, where they would hear a live roar one second before the action appeared on screen.
Several times, Southampton has hosted local qualifying for a Shinnecock Open, and there is talk about doing it again in 2026. Players are inspired when they see the stands being erected. They realize how close the Open is, and how far away.
“One of my first times playing in a qualifier here, I was playing with Mike Muller, who was the pro at National,” de Kerillis recalls. “We get to the sixth hole, and I snap hook it. It goes onto Shinnecock and Mike says, `You’re getting there a little too early.’”
Digging into old newspaper clippings this year has unearthed tidbits no one at Southampton had known. There were dog shows and tennis tournaments in the 1920s. There was a fancy second-floor ballroom. Research also revealed why there is a windmill on the club logo, even though there never has been one on the grounds.
“At the turn of the century, windmills were an essential part of East End commerce,” club president Antilety says. “So, the founders, because it was supposed to be a club for the local businessperson, decided that the best symbol was a windmill.