Gardiners Bay Country Club

This windswept layout on Shelter Island delivers the kind of raw, seaside golf that defines the best of Long Island Sound country. The back nine runs perilously close to Gardiners Bay, where prevailing winds off the water transform even mid-irons into strategic puzzles, and the par-3 14th demands a nerve-testing carry over wetlands that'll separate the confident from the tentative. It's honest, unpretentious golf where the terrain does the talking—no need for manufactured drama when Mother Nature provides the theater.