North Hempstead Country Club

North Hempstead was built in 1916 at Port Washington, on the north shore of Long Island, to a design by A. W. Tillinghast. Robert Trent Jones Senior worked on it in 1960 and Gil Hanse in 1996, which for a Tillinghast course is a fairly typical sequence: mid-century strengthening, then a modern hand trying to recover what the first one covered.

It plays as a par 70, and published yardages from the back differ between sources, running from roughly 6,290 to 6,400 yards. That is short by any modern standard, and it is the whole subject of the course.

What it asks of you

A par 70 of 6,300 yards on Long Island’s north shore is not a course you overpower, because the ground will not let you. The terrain rolls, the corridors are tree-lined, and Tillinghast’s greens sit at angles that make the approach from the wrong side of the fairway materially harder than the one from the right side.

That is the calculation on almost every hole: a longer drive down the easy side leaves a worse angle than a shorter one down the difficult side. Players who work this out score; players who simply hit driver do not.

Hanse’s 1996 work matters here because his practice has been to reopen the width that trees and mid-century bunkering had closed. Where that has been done, the original choice comes back, and the course reads as Tillinghast intended.

What players say about it

This is a private club, so the public record comes from guest accounts and specialist reviews. The points below summarise what recurs. These are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course, and we name and quote no one.

What comes up in its favor

• The Tillinghast pedigree is the draw, on an island that has more good early architecture than anywhere else in the country.
• Conditioning is reported as excellent, and the course is described as superbly manicured.
• The rolling ground gives variety that the yardage does not suggest.
• The Hanse work is well received by visitors who knew the course before.

What comes up against

• Access is closed: private club, play by invitation.
• At 6,300 yards it offers a long hitter almost nothing off the tee.
• It sits among Long Island’s celebrated courses and is rarely the one visitors are trying to play.
• Published yardages disagree, which is a small sign of how little the club publishes.

Getting there and when to go

The club is on Port Washington Boulevard, about forty minutes east of Manhattan and reachable by the Long Island Rail Road.

The season runs roughly from April to November. June and September give the best conditions; the north shore is milder than inland. Play is by invitation of a member.

Green fees

Guest conditions are set by the club. See the club’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location, encyclopaedic entries and public course records for the founding, the three architects, the par and the yardage. Where sources disagree on the length we give the range rather than pick one. The opinion section summarises public reviews and guest accounts read in September 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations.

We have not played this course, and this page is no substitute for a round. The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say over its content. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.