Charting a New Course
Friar’s Head opened for play in 2002,
but it began a decade earlier as little
more than an idea in the head of real
estate developer and successful amateur
golfer Ken Bakst. “I saw this land in the
early ’90s and, ultimately, it was something that stuck in my head,” says the 50-
year-old Bakst, who now serves as the
club’s Managing Member. Sailors of the
19th century had nicknamed that area of
land “Friar’s Head” thanks to a prominent
windswept dune surrounded by low-lying
vegetation, and the name stuck.
Bakst was immediately taken with the
landscape, characterized by bluffs that have
been rated as “globally rare” by the New
York State National Heritage Program. “I
had always dreamed of building a golf course.
Not necessarily at that time in my life, but
then opportunity knocked and Friar’s Head
became available and I just thought it was too
unique an opportunity to pass up.”
Bakst is someone who knows how to capitalize on an opportunity. He won the 1996
Met Amateur, his first career MGA title, after
defeating Jerry Courville Jr., 2 & 1, in a
thrilling final match at Nassau Country Club.
With that victory fresh in his mind, the year
1997 would prove to be a pivotal one for both
Bakst and Friar’s Head. Between taking an
early spring tour of the land with golf architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and finally gaining control of the 350-acre piece of
property at the end of year, Bakst also managed to squeeze in a victory at the U.S. Mid-Amateur that fall. And while that win meant
that Bakst had suddenly fulfilled every golfer’s
dream of qualifying for The Masters (where
he would enjoy practice rounds with both
Jack and Arnie), his dream of building a classic test of golf amidst the backdrop of Long
Island Sound wasn’t so easily attained.
In fact, it wasn’t until months later, and
several subsequent trips to the site, that Bill
Coore finally drew up a feasible layout that
was also in keeping with his firm’s minimally
invasive architectural philosophy. “It was a bit
of a challenge,” Coore acknowledges. “We
had to find ways to travel through those dunes
and out into the open areas and back and link
the holes together without having to completely bulldoze away and change the land
into some unrecognizable form.”
The ultimate testament to the success of
the Coore and Crenshaw layout, Bakst says,
often comes from those who know little about
the origins of Friar’s Head. “I kind of laugh
when people come to the course today and
say, ‘Well darn, this is just the perfect piece of
land for golf,’” Bakst says. “When they ask
why I’m laughing, I say, ‘You think that today,
but if you had seen it when we started, it
wouldn’t have been as evident.’”
Ben Crenshaw (in hat) and
Bakst walk the Friar’s
Head property during
course construction.
The Layout
The combination of one of the most respected
golf course design firms and a site near Long
Island Sound drew immediate accolades from
national golf publications. Golf Digest ranked
Friar’s Head third on the 10 best new private
courses list for 2003. Two years later, the
course debuted at No. 41 on Golf Magazine’s
Top 100 Courses in the U.S., and in 2007
moved up to No. 22 in the country and No.
33 in the world. What drew the most acclaim
from golf architecture buffs was the way Coore
and Crenshaw managed to weave together the
inland and coastal sections of the course.
“Certainly, our major concerns were the
transitions,” explains Coore. “How do you go
from the dunes to the old agricultural field
and back without it being so stark or out of
place?” This need for smooth transitions came
about after Bakst and his design team agreed
that they did not want to create two distinctly
different sections of the course. “I think that
we were drawn more towards the Cypress
Point-type of routing,” Bakst says, “one which
