Friar's Head Golf Club

Riverhead, NY Private

Overview

The challenge for architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw at Friar’s Head was to design some holes in breathtaking sand dunes perched 200 feet above Long Island Sound, and other holes on an ordinary potato field to the south. Said Crenshaw, “Our job was to marry the two distinct elements. We didn’t want one nine up in the dunes and the other down on the flat.” The solution was to move the routing back and forth and to artfully reshape the farm fields into gentle linkslike land. They pulled it off so impressively that Friar’s Head has moved steadily up the rankings each survey period until this year, from No. 34 in its 2011 debut to No. 15 in 2023-2024.

About

Holes 18
Length 7071
Slope 138
Facility Type Private
Year Opened 2002
Designer Ben Crenshaw/Bill Coore, ASGCA

Awards

100 Greatest
Best Courses in Every State

Ranking history:

100 Greatest: Ranked since 2011.
2023-'24 ranking: 15th (highest, along with 2019-2020)
Previous ranking: 16th.

Best in State: Ranked Top 5 in New York since 2017; Top 10 from 2011-2016; Top 15 from 2005-2009.
Current ranking: 5th since 2017.

Panelists

Ratings from our panel of 1,900 course-ranking panelists

4.8

100 GREATEST/BEST IN STATE SCORES

Shot Options
8.1185
Character
8.2185
Challenge
7.9295
Layout Variety
8.2236
Fun
8.0372
Aesthetics
8.249
Conditioning
8.1282

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