Rockaway Hunting Club Course Review

The Rockaway Hunting Club is a very special place, as it makes for the oldest country club in America, though its fame was due initially to other activities, not golf per se. Located on the Southern shore of Long Island, just 6 miles away from the JFK International Airport and/or a 30 minutes drive from midtown New York (read Manhattan), the Rockaway Hunting Club is separated by the Atlantic Oceans waters by a slender piece of land, the Long Beach Barrier Island respectively. Due to its position, the Rockaway Hunting Club is always exposed to the cooling winds coming from the Atlantic during the hot summers, but the flip side of that coin is that youll have to deal with the same scouring winds in the shoulder seasons. The Rockaway Hunting Club was founded way back in 1877 and as its name suggests (and I already told you), its first years were all about equestrian sports, not golf; the likes of steeplechase and fox hunting were immensely popular in that day and age, together with American polo.

The aristocratic game of golf arrived at Rockaway Hunting Club just a few years later and a rudimentary 9 hole course was built in 1895, whilst a full 18 hole was ready to roll by 1900. The golf courses design makes for a long story, being signed by all the famous architects of that time, making for an architectural hybrid if there ever was one. To mention just a few names, theres Tom Bendelow, Devereux Emmet, A.W. Tillinghast, Perry Maxwell and many other famous names, all contributing to the courses design. The current routing was settled in the midst of the 20th century, however, the Rockaway Hunting Club continued to evolve. The most recent design-phase was completed recently in the form and shape of a comprehensive routing update, courtesy of golf architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, transforming the Rockaway Hunting Club from a hidden gem to a must play in this life time or bust.