Fishers Island Club

The verdict

Fishers Island is widely held to be the finest course Seth Raynor designed, which on a body of work that includes some of the great names in American golf is the highest possible praise. Raynor laid it out on a private island in Long Island Sound, off the Connecticut coast but belonging to New York, and routed it to take maximum advantage of the rocky shoreline and the views across the water. He died in January 1926, a few months before the course opened that July, and his associate Charles Banks completed the construction, carrying the bold, geometric Raynor style through to the last green.

For the travelling golfer, Fishers Island is the rare combination of an architectural masterpiece and a genuine adventure to reach. The island is accessible only by ferry from New London or by private boat or plane, and that remoteness is central to the mystique: a round here is something golfers plan for years and remember for life. The course delivers Raynor's template holes at their best, set against the Atlantic with the sound shimmering beyond, on firm, exposed turf that plays to the wind. Access is strictly private, through a member, but as the prize of a New England and New York classics trip there are few rounds more sought after. This is template golf at the very summit.

The holes worth the trip

Fishers Island is a tour through Raynor's template holes presented in a setting almost no other example can match. There are not one but two Redan greens on the course, including the much discussed example played as a par 4, where the long, angled green tilts away from the player and demands a running shot that uses the slope rather than a bold flag hunt. The Biarritz, with its deep swale carved across a vast green, and the other classic templates appear in turn, each one fitted to the island's contours and framed by the water so that the architecture and the setting amplify one another.

The seaside holes are the ones golfers describe for years afterward. Several play along or toward the rocky shoreline with the sound and the Atlantic filling the horizon, fully exposed to the wind that sweeps across the island, so the same template can ask for a soft fade one day and a punched draw the next. Raynor's greens are large, bold and geometric, full of the right angles and steep faces that define his style, and they reward the player who plots the approach to the correct portion of the surface and punish the one who fires blindly at the pin.

At around 6,600 yards the course is modest in length, and once again that misses the point entirely. The defense is the wind, the firmness and the severity of the green complexes, not yardage, and on an exposed island the breeze is rarely absent. Play the templates as Raynor intended, use the ground and respect the angles, and Fishers Island reveals itself as both a thrilling test and one of the most beautiful places to play the game in America.

Where to stay nearby

Fishers Island has very limited accommodation of its own, so most visiting golfers base on the mainland and travel across for the day. The Connecticut coast around New London and Mystic is the natural launch point, with the ferry running from New London, while the seaside towns of southern Rhode Island are an easy drive for a more resort feel. Plan the trip around the ferry timetable rather than the other way around.

Most golfers fold Fishers Island into a wider tour of the great classic courses of the northeast, given its private access. Pair it with the other template and Golden Age masterpieces of the region: the Macdonald and Raynor course at Yale Golf Course just up the Connecticut coast, the C. B. Macdonald original at National Golf Links of America on Long Island, and the championship links of Shinnecock Hills make a trip built around the finest names in American golf.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts on the Connecticut and Rhode Island coast.