SOUTHAMPTON, NY — If you had taken the Long Island Railroad from Midtown Manhattan to the US Open on Friday morning, it would have taken you about 2 hours and 30 minutes to reach the Shinnecock Hills station. If you had driven or caught an Uber, it would have been difficult to estimate your commute time, due to the terrible unpredictability of the Long Island Expressway coupled with the snarls that choked the Montauk highway in the area around the club. Cycling about 90 kilometers? Google Maps reports that the move would take about 8 hours.
Skateboard and pogo stick aside, there was at least one other form of transportation that could get you out of Shinnecock: the chopper. That’s how my partner, Darren Riehl, and I went to the US Open on Friday, courtesy of the helicopter company Blade.. Our bird: one engine A Bell 407 with room for two pilots and five passengers. Flight time to the South Fork: 40 glorious, non-aggressive minutes.
This luxury doesn’t come cheap: $1,480 for a one-way ticket, or about the cost of five second-round passes, with about $150 left over for snacks and merchandise. But, man, is a way to travel. Darren and I arrived at Blade’s West 30th St. heliport-cum-lounge, we are tight against the Hudson river, about 7:45 am No lines. There is no TSA. No worries. I was on an 8 am flight; Darren was one flight behind me, at 8:15. After a quick (free!) espresso at a bar overlooking the tarmac, I was called to the exit, where my four fellow US Open-goers and I were ushered out to our cart, its blades already moving.
The next few actions happened quickly: seat belts were unbuckled, the door was closed and locked, phones were taken out of pockets and cameras at the ready. Stop it. Five, 10, 50, 100 meters. In seconds, the entire Hudson Yards was in front of us and the Hudson River below us. Still climbing, we headed north, the large area of Midtown that we now see. The Empire State Building. Chrysler. The 1,550-foot Central Park Tower. Then came Central Park itself, a 51-block long green space. Then it’s the House That Ruth Built (well, the new-age version of it, anyway), before we ease off towards Long Island Sound.
A few minutes later, some sights. Out the window to my left: a view of the stunning beach and landscape of Long Island’s Gold Coast, where Gatsby used to run. To my right, Westchester County, New York, and, just east of that, Connecticut.
Alan Bastable
Views are also made for exceptional golf course views. Sands Point, the Tillinghast study that began in 1928, was down there. So are Glen Cove and Huntington, the sandy sprawls of The Creek – and about a dozen other golf courses I’ve seen, some in backyards.
Soon we were heading south on Montauk Highway (a reminder of the difficult commute that could have been!). The beautiful nine-hole course at Quogue Field Club has been seen as a replica of the Hamptons beach houses. Next came Shinnecock Bay. We then began our descent towards a grassy area on Shinnecock Indian Nation land, just south of the golf course, where another helipad and lounge awaited.
