It started with Shinnecock Hills.
When the Long Island club opened its clubhouse in 1892, it wasn’t just unveiling a handsome new building. It was opening what is widely regarded as the first golf clubhouse in the United States.
Like the championship course it overlooks, architect Stanford White’s design sits naturally in its surroundings, its wood-shingled exterior and wraparound veranda as graceful as they are understated, framing sweeping views of the links and the Atlantic beyond.
It was the first in its category, but hardly the last.
Over the next century-plus, thousands of clubhouses rose across America. Some were built for little more than function — cinderblock boxes with a pro shop and a snack bar. Others became architectural statements, steeped in history, personality and place.
Over the past year, GOLF.com has stepped inside some of the game’s most memorable clubhouses to see what makes them special.
At Oakmont, our videographers wandered halls lined with priceless memorabilia, passed beneath the watchful portrait of founder Henry Fownes and into a locker room where the wooden benches still bear spike marks from the likes of Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus.
At Sleepy Hollow, in New York’s Hudson Valley, we documented the evolution — and Gilded Age elegance — of a clubhouse that began its life as a Vanderbilt mansion.
At the Olympic Club, our cameras captured not one but two iconic homes: the stately clubhouse overlooking the Lake Course on San Francisco’s western edge and the grand downtown athletic club that has been a pillar of the city’s sporting scene for generations.
In Scottsdale, we explored Desert Mountain, where architect Bob Bacon walked us through the thinking behind a masterpiece that beautifully blurs the boundary between indoor and outdoor spaces.
Last but far from least, we turned our lenses on The Bridge, the exclusive Long Island club whose striking modernist clubhouse breaks from convention in all the right ways.
The result is a series of videos that goes beyond standard guided tours, offering an inside look at clubhouses that are as remarkable for their architecture as they are for the stories they inspire.
And though we have yet to produce video devoted exclusively to Shinnecock Hills’ clubhouse, we have filmed the experience of visiting the club, from its landmark clubhouse to its legendary links. You can watch that video here.
