This is certainly a shame if the sale goes through. I would, however, take exception with the history of the golf course as presented on the club’s website. If there was a previously existing 9-holes that was designed and built by Herbert Strong followed by a new 9-holer by Tilly making the course 18-holes, then various contemporary newspaper accounts about both the founding of the club and design/construction of the course are incorrect.
From the 3/29/1927 edition of the Long Island Press under the headline: New Long Island Golf Course Will Open in June at Sayville
“The newest of New York’s golf clubs makes its bow to the ever thirsty lovers of the game. The Island Hills CC at Sayville… The design is from the fertile brain of A. W. Tillinghast, one of America’s ablest and most thorough golf architects…
“The Island Hills course is a realisation of the dream of Emid F. Kupfer, well known manufacturer of Brooklyn. Kupfer saw in the site a natural contour adaptable to the creation of a sporty course that modern golfers would find unusually attractive. Kupfer bought the acreage and financed the construction of grounds and house…”
You’ll not in the article that no mention is m,ade of an existing club with nine holes being expanded or even Kupfer purchasing an existing 9-hole course/club; rather this is a report of a brand new club on a brand new site and an entirely original 18-hole design/build by Tillinghast. In fact the article states, “An organization capable of caring fully for both course and clubhouse is now ready to start work in April and members will not be forced to wait for facilities.”
There was a brief but similar article in the New York Times on 7/14/1927 NY Times which stated, “One of the latest to come in for considerable praise is the new Island Hills Country Club at Sayville, which was built under the direction of A.W. Tillinghast. Nine holes opened a month ago and it is expected tom open another nine early next month. When in full operation the layout will measure more than 6,700 yards over undulating acres on the South Shore.”
The following day, 7/15/1927 The Suffolk County News, under the headline, “New Golf Course Highly Praised,” stated: “Mr. Tillinghast said, ‘The course here was laid out by nature so far as the terrain is concerned, and I have given it my very best ideas as planning the holes… Folks, you don’t know what you have here. It will take some of the great players of the country to place your enthusiasm where it belongs. In their playing over many golf courses it is they who will discover and make Island Hills famous.’”
