Montauk Downs State Park
Designed by Robert Trent Jones
History
The story of Montauk Downs begins with a different name entirely. The land at the far end of Long Island had already known golf for decades before the state ever took an interest, having been developed in the 1920s as part of Carl Fisher’s ambitious vision to transform Montauk into “the Miami Beach of the North.” That earlier course served the resort community Fisher imagined, but the grand development plans that were meant to surround it never fully materialized, and ownership of the property drifted over the following decades.
By the late 1960s, New York State had acquired the grounds, and the decision was made to rebuild the course as a public facility under state park management. The job went to Robert Trent Jones, by then the most prolific and influential name in American golf architecture, whose firm had spent the postwar decades reshaping the profession itself with muscular, championship-caliber designs from coast to coast. Jones’s 1968 redesign gave Montauk Downs its present form, and the state’s involvement meant something rare in golf at the time: a course built to championship standards but held open to the public, rather than sequestered behind a private gate.
In the years since, Montauk Downs has held its place as one of the crown jewels of the New York State park system, regularly ranked among the finest public courses in the state and hosting state amateur championships that have tested generations of New York golfers. The course has undergone maintenance and restoration work over the decades to preserve Jones’s routing and design intent, but its essential character — a state-run public course carrying a championship pedigree — has remained consistent since that 1968 rebuild.
Playing Notes
Bring extra balls and a windbreaker, because the exposed stretches of this layout catch the same Atlantic gusts that batter the Montauk coastline, and that wind will affect club selection more than anything else on the scorecard. The terrain rolls enough to make flat lies feel like a small victory, and the course is walkable if you're prepared for some uphill stretches, though plenty of players opt for a cart given the length between certain holes. Greens here tend to run true but demand attention to subtle breaks, so lag putting matters more than it might elsewhere. Off the tee, accuracy pays off more than raw distance, since missed fairways can leave awkward angles into greens guarded by well-placed bunkers. Give yourself extra time at the turn and expect a full day out there, especially in shoulder-season months when the wind picks up in the afternoon.