SOUTHAMPTON — Sitting atop an impressive hill overlooking the Peconic Bay and its own beautiful, brawny 18 championship holes is the Sebonack Golf Club, where the U.S. Women’s Open will be played today through Sunday.
Along with the views of the course’s generously wide fairways, rough-hewn bunkers and severely undulating greens as well as the scenic looks at the water, Sebonack stands tall over its next-door neighbor, the venerable National Golf Links of America.
National is one of the most iconic and exclusive links courses in the country, born in 1911 from designer C.B. Macdonald’s genius. It is, for the hard-core golfer, one of the most desired places to play in the world and one of the most difficult to get an invitation to play.
The arrival of Sebonack, a relative newbie designed by Jack Nicklaus and Tom Doak in 2006, set in motion a classic old money versus new money dynamic.
There is little question there are National members who look down their noses at Sebonack with its massive clubhouse and nine cottages that overlook National’s treasured property.
“What club? What clubhouse? I don’t see anything over there,’’ one National caddie quipped to me about Sebonack looming large in the distance during a recent guest round there.
The compelling dynamic that douses any National vs. Sebonack flames of friction is Sebonack owner Michael Pascucci, a Long Island native who blocked for Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown at Manhasset High School in the early 1950s and is a self-made success.
It is, quite frankly, difficult to dislike the 76-year-old Pascucci, who built himself into a success first in the brick business, then leasing cars and, most recently, in local cable TV (he owns WLNY, Channel 55 on Long Island).
Human nature sometimes pushes us to resent the rich. It attempts to push you into not liking a man like Pascucci, whose golf club reportedly initially drew some $650,000 for its membership initiation fee.
But Pascucci does not appear to have a pretentious bone in his body.
Former USGA president David Fay has described him “one of the real saints in the game.’’
Pascucci said one of his goals when he bought the property and began building the club was to try to be a good neighbor to the older and more established National.
In fact, Pascucci revealed to The Post yesterday Sebonack is aiding National in its hosting of the Walker Cup this fall, giving up its driving range and course for the competitors to practice on and its cottages for the teams to stay.
“We have always been very sensitive to them being next door,’’ Pascucci said. “I probably have 150 friends there. We re-routed our road up to our clubhouse because the town had it routed right along their golf holes and they would have been looking at cars driving in all the time.
“So we re-routed that road away from the holes, which probably cost us a half-million dollars more to do. But if I was a member, I wouldn’t want to see that — especially since the newbie guys did it.’’
Pascucci might be a newbie who has built a grand facility, and the presence of his monstrous masterpiece clubhouse peering down at National might ruffle a few feathers across the stone wall, where National members regale themselves on the patio sipping a “Southside,’’ the club’s signature après-golf drink.
But Pascucci seems to be intent on being a good neighbor.