Garden City Golf Club

Overview: Garden City Golf Club stands on the open Hempstead Plains of Long Island, where Devereux Emmet's early routing and Walter Travis's later work created one of the formative American links-style courses. The broad ground gives the layout a spacious appearance, but strategic bunkering, angled greens and changes in the preferred line make the round more exacting than the flat horizon suggests. Its architecture belongs to the period when American golf was defining its own language.

History: The course began in 1897 as the nine-hole Island Golf Links, created in connection with the Garden City Hotel. It later grew into an 18-hole course and the private club associated with the present layout, with Travis refining the design and helping establish its championship character. Garden City hosted the 1902 U.S. Open, placing the course at the centre of American golf during the game's formative national era.

Did You Know? Garden City's earliest identity was shared between a hotel and a golf course before the private club took shape. That history explains the unusual name Island Golf Links and the course's place in the development of American resort golf. A layout that began with nine holes for hotel patrons eventually became a long-standing championship course in its own right.