Long Island’s most unique tee time isn’t what you think
Forget America’s National Golf Links and Shinnecock and Maidstone. Forget Garden City, Piping Rock and The Creek Club. Please avoid getting seasick on the ferry to Fisherman Island.
It turns out you don’t have to be aristocrat to enjoy one of Long Island’s most unique tee times. As long as you can play on other people’s front lawns.
Santang Farm is more than just someone’s front lawn; Ivan Kaufman’s Front lawn. Today, the Long Island real estate scion is the owner and primary beneficiary of the K Club at Three Ponds Farm in Bridgehampton, New York, which he purchased in 2019 for $35 million. This 58 acres of rolling farmland has been transformed into one of the wildest 18-hole golf courses in the world.
Fifty-eight acres is not a lot of land to build a golf course, especially when some of those acres are already dedicated to the property’s living quarters, sunroom, gorgeous driveway, swimming pool, guest cabana, and a pair of museum-quality gardens. As a result, the golf course at Santang Farms is as space-efficient as a studio apartment in the West Village. No inch of the course is wasted, the bunkers are shaped to fit the frame from every angle, the massive greens are crafted from Swiss cheese, and slopes and shelves offer maximum variety.
The origin story of Santa Pond Farm is no different than that of many other great golf courses. A stretch of sandy farmland in a beautiful corner of the world. An interested investor (Edward Gordon) made the bargain purchase (original sale price: less than $1 million!). A bold idea – to build a world-class golf course – and a talented course designer (Rhys Jones) who hates waste.
Eventually, a golf course was built, and Ryan Loudenslager, superintendent of Jones’s other course, Bethpage Black, was hired full-time as super golf course manager. Over time, ownership changed, and the 9 holes became 18 holes, and Three Ponds Farm became the “K Club.”
“That’s fascinating, isn’t it?” Jones said with a smile. “And not small either.”
Today, the K Club at Santang Farm is indeed much larger than life. Some golf experiences are quietly memorable, but how many are? Unforgettable silence? On a busy day, Santang Farm might have 15 players. On a quiet day, like a Tuesday after the peak season in September? Well, you might be the only golfer out there. (And, to answer the lingering follow-up questions: Yes, Even on a pitch with no other players, it is still common courtesy to fill in the turf and repair ball marks. )
Play on the course is at the owner’s request, but thankfully he is a golf fan. Under Kaufman’s impetus, Santang Ranch doubled in size from a nine-hole loop that was played twice to an 18-hole story with several different performances. Loudenslager went from 35,000 rounds a year at Bethpage to “about 500” at the K-Club, and he keeps the atmosphere lush, energetic and fast. But he and Kauffman don’t end there: Every spring, new tee boxes appear around the course, introducing new hole options and routing options.
The result is five multi-flag greens and a dozen fairways that golfers criss-cross in every direction, making the holes both exotic and familiar. A big reason for this impact is the route, less chronological than orbital, that loops the property around Kaufman’s Mission Revival mansion like manicured planets around an elegant sun.
On several holes, the preferred line and landing area is “The Barn” – technically the property’s “guest cabin” – which was once the storage shed for the dairy farm that predated the golf course. The barn is nestled in the valley between two greens and sits in the center of a green carpeted fairway over 100 yards wide. It’s a throwaway quirk one might expect to see in Scotland, the birthplace of golf, and its role in golf has resulted in three of the best holes in the region.
Overall, the experience is one of a kind – and it’s not just the Fijian waters and high-speed golf carts. One afternoon in Santang, it’s not hard to find yourself daydreaming. How many holes can you drill in a day? How fast can you play them? Is 36 the best way to play a solo? Or is it a four-ball game, a six-ball game… or a ten-ball game?
The answers to these and other questions are Yes. That’s the beauty of K-Club Golf: your excitement is equal to your imagination.
“This place is like the Disneyland of golf,” Laudenschlager said, and of course he’s right. But he was also wrong.
At Disneyland, wonder is a business. This is a passion project – the passion is there No shortage.
