David,
TEPaul's portrayal of Hay Harbor is well, wrong.
Hay Harbor Club and Fishers Island Club are separate entities with a few people belonging to most. Since it is private, the idea that all families send their children to Hay Harbor to play is incorrect.
The golf course at Hay Harbor precedes Fishers Island by at least 20 years, maybe longer. This history of the course is, as of right now, muddled. Pierce Rafferty, the director of the Henry L. Ferguson Museum is working on a history of Hay Harbor Club and I have tried to be of some assistance in regards to the golf course. Very little has been uncovered, and what has leads to more questions than answers. We do know that the clubhouse once sat next to what is now the first green, and the tee for what is now the first hole sat on the other side of the road from its present location, making the hole a slight dogleg right.
Pierce now believes the golf course is in its third incarnation. As some point Seth Raynor was contacted about the “Hay Harbor Club” golf course. What he did there is unknown. Only one hole to my eyes, the downhill sixth, has any bit of Raynor too it, sort of a one-shot version of the what is now the 10th at Wanumetonomy in Rhode Island.
Many people consider the second hole at Hay Harbor the most difficult on the island. It is a narrow, uphill par-4 with the second shot playing over a natural gouge in front of the green that takes up the right two-thirds of the fairway.
Maintenance practices are very basic. Fairways have been mowed with gang units but that will change in ’07. Aeration takes place thanks to Fishers Island loaning equipment for the process. The superintendent is also a science teacher at the island school and the only fulltime course employee. He adds two workers in the summer.
I have a Google Earth Image of the course but lack the computer skills to post it.
It is worth playing and I hope some day you have the chance.
Anthony