The Links Club - Now with Photos

[Sven Nilsen]

In one of the threads that has gone by the wayside due to the recent unpleasantness, Tom Doak indicated he had some old slides of The Links Club that he would be willing to dig up from the archives.

Before moving on to the actual photos themselves, here's some background on the club.  Please chime in with any additional information, or any recollections of what we were discussing in the original thread.

Built from 1917-19 by Charles B. MacDonald and Seth Raynor, the course was heralded as the "severest" test:



Here's an early list of shareholders:



A routing map:



A scorecard (note the hole names):



A 1924 overhead shot:



An aerial view (and an overlay of the routing):





Here's an article discussing the demise of the course:



Finally, an overhead shot of what the site looks like today:

[Sven Nilsen]

Quick side note before moving on.

The club bordered the Long Island Motor Parkway (a phenomenon worthy of its own study).  The Parkway was a private roadway running along the breadth of Long Island.  There are reports of a handful of secret entrances along the way, including one from the grounds of The Links Club (pictured below).  Once you track the involvement of William K. Vanderbilt in both enterprises, it all makes sense.

It does beg the question if the proximity to the LIMP made the choice of the location for the club that much easier.

[Sven Nilsen]

One more quick note.

If you go back through the old maps on the Historic Aerials site, in the 1947 version the location of The Links Club is identified as "Guggenheim Golf Club."  I am guessing that the map is wrong, and that they mistakenly labeled this spot with the name of the course located a little further north in Sands Point.  This course, now known as the Village Club of Sands Point (reworked by Renaissance a little while back) was once the site of the Guggenheim estate before being purchased by IBM to be used for corporate retreats.

Sven

[Tom_Doak]

Sven:

Thanks for putting this up, I hope the pictures translate well from slides to digital to DG.

Funny to see Charles Sabin (who owned the property that's now Sebonack) on the list of owners for the Corporation.  I guess he was in on the ground floor of many of CBM's ventures.  Amazing to see all those names again ... I guess I've been networking in the wrong way for my own business by spending time here.

Your illustration of the routing is mostly accurate, but the tee for #16 was over to the right (in the little nook of trees near 15 green) and the tee for #15 was back by #5 green (I don't remember exactly how it fit, but you'll see from the photo that the line of the hole was clearly from over there).

I'll try to get back to comment on the photos once they're up.

[PCCraig]

This is awesome, Sven. I'm really looking forward to this thread. Thank you putting it together.

[Sven Nilsen]

Here's the first set of photos (note to Tom, if I have any of these reversed let me know and I can flip the image):

1st Hole Tee -



1st Hole Mounds and Green -



2nd Tee and 8th Green -



2nd Green from the Back -

[Mark McKeever]

That 8th green looks fantastic!

MM

[Ed Oden]

Here is the 1954 aerial that I posted on the lost thread...

[Tom_Doak]

The backstory on the photos, which I've reported before, is that I only barely got permission to take them before the course was done in.  When I'd visited the first time, the superintendent, Benny Zukowsky, took me around but only if I put my camera away.  "Mr. Macdonald did not think pictures did justice to the course," he told me, so they never let anyone take pictures of it.  He had been superintendent for 57 years at the time the course closed (I think that was 1929-1986  ), so he knew Mr. Macdonald fairly well.

Anyway, I was working on the restoration of Piping Rock for Mr. Dye when I heard the course was closing, from Jim Albus who was the club pro there at the time.  When I told him I would like to take some pictures of it before it went under, he got permission from one of the living members, who was also a member of Piping Rock.  My pics are actually from two separate visits, one of which was to play the course with P.B. Dye and his friend Steve Lucciola.  I'm sure glad I got the pics before it was too late ... that Google Earth aerial posted by Sven is heartbreaking.

Re: the pictures:  #1 was a Leven hole, with a fairway bunker on the left that you had to carry if you wanted to avoid coming in over the mounds at the right front of the green.  The mound complex was more pronounced than on any Macdonald course I can think of.  It was a good opener, not too tough but it made you do something right.

#2 was an Alps hole, I guess ... there was the deep trench of bunkers in front of the green as a cross hazard, and I'd forgotten about the first set of cross bunkers (see the aerial above, #2 is top middle, running from right to left) which were just before the fairway started down toward the green, so the hole was semi-blind or completely blind depending on the length of the drive. 

In the last picture, just to the left of the hut is the tee for the third hole, the Biarritz, which played back in the opposite direction.

[Rees Milikin]

Sven, thanks for taking the time to put the history & photo tour of this NLE course.

Tom, by your estimation, how much had the course changed at its closing from its original design/intent?  Also, is Benny Zukowsky still alive because I would love to hear some stories from him.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Someone once said that in a eulogy there's a tendency to dismiss the weaknesses of the departed and canonize him for the most basic of human qualities. I get that. And I know the 1st hole looks in some ways flat, save for mounds some if not most would call odd-looking and unnatural, and some perhaps even would call the hole flat or at least two dimensional (ex mounds) in appearance (shallow bunkers), but man: this view makes me want to play golf.

Makes me want to play golf.

You will laugh at me, but personally I find wide-open 1st tee shots like this one maddeningly difficult. So hard to focus the mind on a specific target.

PS Sven, would you mind crediting (sourcing) the non-Doak images?

[Tom_Doak]

Tom, by your estimation, how much had the course changed at its closing from its original design/intent?  Also, is Benny Zukowsky still alive because I would love to hear some stories from him.

Rees:

I doubt that Benny Zukowsky is still alive.  He was still very keen and very active when I met him, but that is 28 years ago now, and he was in his late 70's or early 80's then.  The math isn't on his side.  I think George Bahto spent some time with him, and maybe has some stories.

The course was fairly run down by the time I saw it, but it was not changed at all from its original design, as far as I could tell.  That's what made it cool.  Just like Mr. Macdonald didn't want them to let people take pictures of it, the management team [pro, superintendent and club manager] would not have made any deliberate changes to the design.  As Tom Paul noted on past threads, the course was quite short [6300 yards from the back tees], and had the reputation of being fairly easy for a good golfer because of that, although there were a handful of holes like the Road and Redan that would get anyone's attention.

The sad thing is that it would have made a very fine public course in a very accessible Long Island location -- but at the time, there were no takers for that sort of thing, and the real estate value forced it toward its current "use".

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tom,

I recall hearing that the club hadn't brought in any new members in years and there were only a few left by the late 1980s, which assisted with its demise. True? 

And, thanks for sharing these photos, this is great; thanks to Sven, too, for putting this thread together.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

At the end there were 13 living members who sold the club.

[Sven Nilsen]

Next set.

The 8th Hole -



The 9th Green -



The 10th Green from the Fairway (with the Clubhouse on the left) -



A closer shot of the 10th Green -



The 11th Hole from Behind the Green -

[Rees Milikin]

Like Tom said, turning this into a public course would have been something special.  Where was Trump when we needed him (kidding...sort of)?  That being said, it is truly sad to see a course like this disappear.

[Tom_Doak]

Sorry I didn't have any shots of the corner with holes 4-7.  The only hole I remember well from that stretch was the Road green.

#8 is a standard-issue Short hole, completely surrounded by sand after a pitch over water.  The green had contour but not wild contour.

#9 played over a pond off the tee (seen in the background in the photo of #8), then played to a green right in the corner of the property.

#10 played across one end of the property, past the clubhouse which was 100-150 yards short of the green on the left.  (You walked across 10 fairway to get to the pro shop, 1st tee, and 18th green.)  There seemed to be very little parking for the clubhouse proper; when you drove in you were likely to drive straight across the 10th fairway to the pro shop, unless you knew where you were going.

#11 was the longest hole, with a big, rectangular pond to be carried on the second shot; but if you couldn't make the carry and didn't want to lay up, there was a narrow fairway to the right that you could play to.  It was an odd hole.

[Terry Lavin]

You could put some intriguing foursomes together with that roster.

[Sven Nilsen]

The last batch of photos.

The Reverse Redan at the 13th -



A shot from the 15th Tee -



Further down the 15th -



The 16th Hole (with 17th Tee to the right and the 2nd and 3rd in the background) -



The 18th Hole -

[Tom_Doak]

The Reverse Redan at the 13th -

This was the hole I'll never forget playing.  As I remember it was 220-something yards with the green several feet in the air falling away to all sides, and the angle was much more severe than the normal 45 degrees.  You could either lay up toward the front left to play along the length of the green for your second shot, or go for it and deal with a very very difficult recovery if you were short or long.

[Mark McKeever]

Awesome photos.  Thanks for sharing guys.  Tom, you need to recreate the golf course so we can experience it!!   

Mark

[Mark Bourgeois]

From Tom Paul:

The Reverse Redan at Links Club was also one of the most unforgettable holes I have ever known. It isn't necessarily a hole that visually just jumps out and grabs you, but it was unforgettable to me because it may've been the hardest par 3 to hold the green I have ever known---and this is not to say that it did not provide some fascinating and varietal shot choices (strategies).

My father belonged to that club from maybe the late 50s or early 60s until around the time it closed. His usual group was some combination of James Knott, Bobby Grant and Tommy or Red Choate, all very good golfers in their time, and all members of Piping Rock and NGLA). I may've played that course a hundred or so times but when I played with those guys it was the singular hole that just drove them crazy because that green was so hard to hit and hold.

I think the problem was the approach has a rather quick steep upslope at the green's entrance (front left). Because of that any ball hit into the approach with any height would just die----(a little like the problems I first had trying to bounce a ball with any height off the approach to NGLA's #12 (same steep upslope in the approach next to the green front), before understanding how low I need to play that bounce on option), and mostly balls landing half way into the left green section would go right over the green on that line. So even if you played it to the front left of the green without unusual height the ball would generally run over the back. It was virtually impossible in those days to carry the ball over the bunker and hold the green on the right side. It may've been possible today with the height good players hit the ball but back then even the good players didn't put height on long shot the way they can today.

In many ways that green is designed in reverse at its front like Shinnecock's #7 but the difference is Link's #13 turned or hooked from the front left green section about 70-80 degrees to the right green section and that back right section was narrow (read---"shallow" to the line of flight from the tee). Shinnecock's #7 does not hook or turn at that angle---eg maybe more like 30-40 degrees. Also, that front/right bunker basically covers the right side of that left green section in-line to the tee for maybe 5-7 yards before turning perpendicular (to the tee) to cover the right side of the green.

The Club of choice to those guys was generally a 4 wood (Oh, do I missing seeing those beautiful little persimmon 4 woods), but the problem I saw with them is they didn't hit it low enough. My father generally tried to hit a low cut 4 wood which even for him was not an easy shot to pull off with regularity. But sometimes he would just hit something like an ultra low 3-4 iron well back into the approach and hope it had the proper "weight" to run and then climb the steep front and filter through the left side of the green and turn right and down. I would say from quite a lot of experience on that course that even a good player probably could not hit that green more than one in seven or eight tries. BUT, if one did hit the ideal shot it surely was a beautiful sight to see it turn right out of the left entrance and just filter down the almost perpendicular long right green section. The difference with that turn and filter shot at Link's compared to Piping's redan is at Links you could actually see the ball from the tee all the way on the green! It was the kind of hole that really demanded a whole lot but if and when you pulled it off it basically just made your day!

Like Tom Doak just posted, to me that hole was one of the most unforgettable I have ever known.

[Sven Nilsen]

Tom (and Tom):

Can you speak as to how this course compared to other McRaynor's? 

Other than the Reverse Redan, were there other template holes (of the 9 holes that appear to be adaptations) that stood out as different from what they had done in other locations? 

For the holes unique to the property, which ones stood out as particularly interesting?

How did the Biarritz play?

From the sounds of it, the course was truly a museum piece, even having resisted the addition of length that has changed the dynamics of many of their other courses.  Looking at that scorecard (which I am guessing is from some time after WWII), it seems that the course stuck to the approximately 6,300 yards of total length. 

[Tom_Doak]

Tom (and Tom):

Can you speak as to how this course compared to other McRaynor's? 

Other than the Reverse Redan, were there other template holes (of the 9 holes that appear to be adaptations) that stood out as different from what they had done in other locations? 

For the holes unique to the property, which ones stood out as particularly interesting?

How did the Biarritz play?

From the sounds of it, the course was truly a museum piece, even having resisted the addition of length that has changed the dynamics of many of their other courses.  Looking at that scorecard (which I am guessing is from some time after WWII), it seems that the course stuck to the approximately 6,300 yards of total length. 

Somewhere I still have my scorecard of the course, I will look tomorrow.  I'm betting it was exactly the same as in the 1950's and probably 1930 for that matter.  That's the sort of club it was.  There were no "flat bellies" to add tees for.

I think the pictures I took are pretty indicative of the standout holes for me.  The mounds on #1, the cross bunkering on #2 [which you can only get in one view if it's an aerial], #11, #13 and #15 were the holes that went beyond the normal templates.  Oh, also that serpentine fairway bunker on #5, I'd forgotten all about that until I looked back at the aerial.  [The 4th looks good in the aerial, too, but I do not remember it.] 

The 14th [which I didn't send you a picture of] was quite odd, a long uphill dogleg par-5 with a single unimportant bunker, and trees defending the dogleg short of the green.  The finish of 17 & 18 was pretty weak, really.  I don't think I gave it a rating in The Confidential Guide since it was gone, but it would have been a 5 or 6 on the Doak scale.

[Chris_Blakely]

First, thanks for the pictures.

I would love to have seen a picture of the 3rd as I am a fan of the Biarritz hole.

Quite sad that this course is gone.

Chris