The founders of Shinnecock Hills, a group of wealthy New Yorkers, came home from a trip to France with golf in their heads and no idea where to find it. As far as they knew, the only golf being played in North America was up at Royal Montreal, so they sent for that club's head professional, Willie Davis. In 1891 he laid out twelve holes on the sandy hills above Southampton, aided by some 150 people from the neighboring Shinnecock Reservation. It was probably the first authentic golf course designed in America, and it was cut from ground that seemed to have been waiting for it. A year later the clubhouse rose. Stanford White drew it in the shingled style of the region, with white columns, and set it on the highest point of the property, where it still sits. It is believed to be the first purpose-built clubhouse in the country. A few steps away is the first tee. From there Peconic Bay shimmers far off, and closer in, three hundred open acres tumble away from the clubhouse, rumpled and sandy, bordered by thick, reed-like grasses. That wind is the true owner of the place. It comes strong off the Atlantic from the southwest, and on an average day the bleak, open hills feel like a British seaside links, even though the turf on the fairways and greens has a more inland texture. Shinnecock is not quite a links. It only feels like one, and that small gap between what it is and what it seems is part of its spell. The course has been remade more than once, and each time the land outlasted the people who reshaped it. Willie Dunn added six holes by 1894. In 1912 Shinnecock and its neighbor, the National Golf Links of America, let their members play each other's course for a dollar. With the National built next door, Shinnecock felt the need to modernize. When new land became available during the Great War, Charles B. Macdonald, a Shinnecock member, and Seth Raynor, the pair who had built the National, added six new holes and overhauled the course. Later, plans for Route 27 threatened to cut through a number of their holes. The club bought more land, and from 1929 to 1931 Howard Toomey and William Flynn built twelve new holes and altered the rest. Some historians believe Dick Wilson deserves a share of the credit too. Only two Macdonald and Raynor holes remain, the third and the seventh, tucked into the northwest corner like heirlooms. Shinnecock is Flynn's magnum opus. He arranged the holes in triangles to make the most of the changing winds, so the breeze never settles into a single direction for long. The ground is firm and the fronts of the greens are largely open, which makes the course friendly to lower-trajectory players. But Shinnecock rewards restraint and a sound second shot, and it punishes much else. Ben Hogan wrote to a member that "each hole has complete definition. You know exactly where to shoot." Knowing and doing are different things on a windy afternoon in Southampton. Shinnecock was one of the five clubs that founded the USGA. It was one of the few clubs to accept women as members in the early days, and it hosted the sixth U.S. Women's Amateur in 1900. James Foulis won the U.S. Open here in 1896. Then ninety years passed before the championship returned, and Raymond Floyd won in 1986. Corey Pavin followed in 1995. In 2004 Retief Goosen beat Phil Mickelson by two shots in a controversial Open, and in 2018, amid further controversy, Brooks Koepka defended the title he had won at Erin Hills the year before. A sixth Open came in June 2026, and Wyndham Clark won it. The hills were waiting, much as they were when Willie Davis first walked them.