Tommy Naccarato's posts about California NLEs reminded me of how many great courses have been lost on the Right Coast, specifically on Long Island (including the vastly underrated golf courses of Queens, whose NLEs include a Tillinghast that hosted US Opens, a Mackenzie that influenced his philosophy of ANGC, and a Raynor).
One sense of the quality lost came in a series written in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle by Ralph Trost. He composed his "ideal" 18 consisting of Long Island courses. Judging by his comments, he played everything on the Island -- and / or covered many amateur and professional tournaments on these courses.
He fitted his 18 in order -- the first on his ideal course came from LI's 1st holes -- and gave consideration to routing ( at least, coming up with a balance of pars and not including back-to-back par 3s, that sort of thing) and rhythm (eg taking care not to include too many water carries, choosing his 1st and 10th holes in part for their ability to ease the golfer into the nine, etc).
Here they are -- note all the NLE holes:
1 St Albans 355 yd par 4
2 Garden City 132 yd par 3
3 NGLA “Alps / “Bell Hole” 416 yd par 4
4 Lido “Channel” 466 yd par 5
5 Lido “Cape” 378 yd par 4
6 Fresh Meadow (at 1932 US Open the “least-parred” hole) 431 yd par 4
7 Cherry Valley 147 yd par 3
8 Timber Point 510 yd par 5 -- split fairway w optional carries
9 Rockaway Hunt 406 yd par 4
10 Seawane 300 yd par 4
11 Shinnecock 160 yd par 3
12 Wheatley Hills 560 yd par 5
13 Seawane 406 yd par 4
14 Piping Rock 395 yd par 4
15 Timber Point “Gibraltar” 200 yd par 3
16 Timber Point 355 yd par 4 (“one of the grandest holes of that length ever built”)
17 Garden City GC 495 yds?? par 5 (yardage not listed in the article so I just plugged in what I understand to be the hole's current length)
18 Lido 405 yd par 4
Total
6,517 yards par 72
We think of NGLA and Shinny as great, but Trost didn't have the "benefit" of hindsight: he saw the courses as they were in 1935, and while, yes, many were ballyhooed there undoubtedly was more room for independent thinking.
At any rate, his 18 supplies food for thought.