The golf course at Montauk Downs State Park received some well-deserved face time in the February 2010 issue of Golf Digest. The East End's heralded and hard-to-reach public course stepped into the national spotlight in the magazine's "Long Drives" travel feature, a column that takes a new car on a regional golf excursion.
In this edition, writer Matthew Rudy test-drove a Volkswagen CC from Golf Digest headquarters in Connecticut through Nassau and Suffolk for some autumn golf on the South Fork. Rudy writes:
"Sitting on high ground pinched on four sides by lakes, the Long Island Sound and the Atlantic, The Downs is about handling prevailing wind. I played with a friend, who growing up spent his summers in Montauk, and he warned me off the back tees. After playing the 372-yard first hole straight uphill and into a 30-mile-per-hour wind with driver, 6-iron, 7-iron, I believed. Blasting around in four hours, I finished with a downwind birdie, windblown and ready for some ChapStick. And with enough cash left for a beer and chowder at the Clam Bar on Montauk Highway.
"Perfect."
(Golf Digest: February 2010)
Montauk Downs boasts a long list of accolades. Golf Digest gives the course 4-1/2 stars in its Best Places To Play listing, and Newsday rates it as Long Island's #2 public course, behind only Bethpage Black. The course is also ranked #38 in Golfweek's list of America's Best Municipal Courses.