Make the Most of Shinnecock Hills
Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, founded in 1891, is widely considered the oldest incorporated golf club in the United States and was one of five founding member clubs of the USGA. Its 1892 clubhouse, designed by McKim, Mead & White, is often cited as the first purpose-built golf clubhouse in the country, and the club has hosted six U.S. Next door, the National Golf Links of America, laid out in 1911 by Charles Blair Macdonald, has hosted two Walker Cups and remains one of the most storied courses in American golf. Together, the two clubs make Shinnecock Hills a pilgrimage site for golfers, whether or not you ever tee off yourself.
The Shinnecock Canal is the symbolic gateway to the Hamptons and the only waterway on Long Island with a working navigation lock, built in 1892 to link Great Peconic Bay with Shinnecock Bay. Long before the canal, the Shinnecock people crossed this same stretch of land by canoe portage, a route still remembered in the name Canoe Place. Today the canal and the Shinnecock Inlet carry an estimated 27,000 boats a year out to the Atlantic, making this one of the busiest small-craft gateways on the East End.
Shinnecock Hills sits just east of the Shinnecock Indian Reservation, home to the Shinnecock Nation. The reservation’s museum and cultural center welcome visitors year-round, and every Labor Day weekend since 1946 it has hosted the Shinnecock Powwow, one of the country’s oldest and largest, drawing tens of thousands of visitors for dance, drumming, and Native craft and food.
The Shinnecock Canal doubles as the neighborhood’s dining room. Canal Cafe cleans the day’s catch right on its marina deck for a lobster roll Dan’s Papers calls the best around, Cowfish plates a more composed version at tables over the boat traffic, and Oakland’s Restaurant and Marina on Dune Road brings the dressier finish, with an award-winning wine list overlooking Shinnecock Bay.