Golf in Sayville

A featured instructor for ESPN Radio and Long Island Golfing Magazine, teaching professional Peter Stern assists students with game improvement through lessons held at Indian Head Golf Park. Peter instills the fundamentals of a proper golf swing, which hold up from tee to green with a focus on helping pupils replicate perfected mechanics long after the lesson ends. While the body learns to become one with the club, a video camera records the session so that students can see weak points for themselves rather than trading bodies with a misunderstood sibling. All lessons evade the elements either in Peter's indoor studio or outdoor covered teaching booth.

Twin Lakes Golf Course is set on grounds that have been walked by golfers for more than 50 years, but enjoy the modern touches of a recent revamping. New tee boxes reside atop the professionally manicured greens that carpet the 10-acre course. Its renovated clubhouse offers guests the supplies they need for gameplay, including clubs and pull carts. After a round, players can return to the clubhouse where pizza bubbles in a wood-burning oven and cool beverages flow freely from taps.

Practice is the foundation of golf. Without it, the game can be frustrating, eventually sending golfers' into a fragile state of agitation. Knowing how important practice is, Indian Head Golf Park's instructors and staff focus their efforts on helping golfers improve their game. At the park's well-lit driving range, staff members keep golfers well stocked with buckets of range balls to blow off steam as they aim for the ball-retriever cart. Instructor Bob Greenstein works with students during private lessons to fine-tune their swings, and he hosts junior golf camps during summer to introduce youngsters to the game.

The peaks of the Organ Mountains rise above the Mesilla Valley, framing the immaculate greenery of Sonoma Ranch Golf Course's 18-hole, 7,028-yard layout. Designed by internationally renowned course architect Cal Olson, the course unfurls across the valley floor with undulating fairways, encroaching water hazards, and sprawling bunkers that force players to build sandcastle trebuchets to rescue errant golf balls. A lengthy course when played from the back tees, the grassy monolith also challenges players' short game with massive, bentgrass greens peppered with hard-to-read breaks. Clubbers can prepare for their pin-hunting voyage with a stint at the driving range or practice green, or stare down the treacherous fairways over a tasty nosh at the Sunset Grill, which overlooks the scenic expanse.

Course at a Glance:

• Designed by Cal Olson
• 18-hole, par 72 course
• Bentgrass greens
• Length of 7,028 yards from the farthest tees
• Course rating of 72.1 from the farthest tees
• Slope rating of 120 from the farthest tees
• Three tee options

St. James 1st Tee Fitness & Performance guides golfers through a complete golf fitness and performance program that focuses on injury prevention and swing consistency. Titleist Performance Institute-certified fitness instructors teach the principles of mobility and stability, ideals that help a player generate swing speed while correcting bad posture or a tendency to sneeze out lunch during a backswing. The instructors begin by assessing a golfer's physical health and limitations as well as their swing style, then design a fitness program to address these issues. Golf-specific stretches and exercises focus on improving balance, endurance, and pre-tap-in ribbon dances, ultimately increasing the consistency of the swing plane and improving the ability to hit the sweet spot. Rehabilitated golfers can practice their new swings on the in-house golf simulator, which provides a respite from bad weather and the expensive greens fees associated with the real versions of famous courses, such as Pebble Beach, Pinehurst, and Bethpage Black.

Designed by legendary fairway-carver Robert Trent Jones Jr., Long Island National Golf Club Riverhead's 18-hole course layout runs along 6,838 yards of rolling terrain wreathed by farmland and vineyards. Throughout the round, each hole plots a path through a sea of knee-high fescue grass that sways in the wind atop fairway side mounds, channeling the look of golf's seminal Scottish courses. Water comes into play on four holes, promising a grim fate for wayward balls that don't speak catfish. Rated the course's hardest hole, the par 5 18th offers a dramatic end to the round, as clubbers must blast the ball 590 yards over a treacherously narrow fairway to reach the green. Alongside the grassy monolith, soaring drives lift off from a gallery of hitting stalls at the driving range, where players can smooth out herky-jerky swings and make clubs do calisthenics in preparation for their round.

Those looking to upgrade their golf garbs or replace a club damaged in a street fight with a gang of croquet mallets can head to the pro shop, which peddles apparel and equipment from top brands including Titleist, FootJoy, and Adidas. Post-round hunger meets its match at Bogey's Grill, which serves up savory grill fare and icy drinks to weary linksmen.

Course at a Glance:

Designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr.

18-hole, par-71 course

Length of 6,838 yards from the farthest tees

Four tee options