News from Goat Hill: Pick three clubs, your putter and let’s play

Time’s a wastin’. Slots are filling up fast for Shelter Island Country Club’s “Three Clubs and a Putter” tournament Sunday, July 19. The course will close at 2 p.m. that day to accommodate the 4 p.m. shotgun start. So, you might as well join us.

The tournament is open to all. Cost is $30 for members and $45 for non-members. It includes cart, food, drink ticket and cash prizes. Mulligans and 50-50 raffle tickets can be purchased on the day of the tournament.

Tournament rules are simple: Golfers can have only three clubs of their choosing, plus a putter, in their bag. All other clubs must be removed.

Sign up at the pro shop or by email to [email protected]. Carts will be available on a limited basis, so please indicate whether you will need a rental cart. Remember, one golfer per cart unless you live in the same household.

Golfers can form their own foursomes, if they choose. Otherwise, the Golf Committee will create the groups.

Membership meeting set

SICC members are encouraged to attend the club’s first membership meeting of the 2020 season at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 22. The Board of Trustees will offer updates on the club’s finances, operational improvements and projects ahead. Plus, trustees will seek nominations for several board seats up for election in the fall. Though the Flying Goat restaurant is closed on Wednesdays, bar service will be available (the first round’s on us). The meeting will take place on the porch to allow for comfortable social distancing. All who attend are asked to wear face coverings.

Tuesday Twosomes

The Tuesday Twosomes are off to a good start. The summer league tees off weekly at 5 p.m. If you’d like to join in, sign up by emailing [email protected]  or at the pro shop. Weekly league fee is $10 for members, $15 for members renting a cart. The cost for non-members is $40 (league and greens fees and cart rental).

Golfers can form their own twosomes. Single golfers will be paired by the Golf Committee. Everyone plays their own game. No mulligans and no gimmees. Scorecards must be turned in to the Golf Committee each week. End-of-the-season prizes in various categories will be awarded in September.

Flying Goat hours

The Flying Goat restaurant is open every day except Wednesday from noon to 7 p.m. Table service is available on the clubhouse porch, while drinks and bar menu service is available at the picnic tables. Please call 631-749-5404 for early dinner reservations.

From the archives

So many interesting tidbits — from caddy prices to forgiving ground rules — can be found on the back of an early 20th century SICC scorecard.

At the bottom is an advertisement for the Spalding Wizard (Blue Dot) Golf Ball, a rather strange looking sphere covered in raised dimples. The athletic goods company claimed the Blue Dot was even better than its earlier Red Dot version.

“I consider it the best ball I ever played with,” Willie Anderson boasts in the ad, saying he got greater distance and putted better. Anderson played with a Blue Dot when he won the “Open Championship of America” in September 1905. So did Alex (or Alick, as he signed in a letter to Spalding) Smith, the runner-up, and third-place finisher P.J. Barrett.

However, James Braid won his second consecutive Open championship in 1906 using the Wizard Red Dot. In a letter to the Spalding company, Braid applauded the ball’s durability and enclosed an order for “2 gross” or 24 dozen balls. The covers of the Spalding Wizards were made of gutta, the dried sap of the Malaysian sapodilla tree. The sap had a rubber-like feel and could be made spherical by heating and shaping it in a mold. And, the balls could be reformed if they became damaged or misshapen. The gutta ball, first created in 1848, was replaced by a rubber-cored ball created in 1898 by Coburn Haskell. By the early 1900s, golf balls became dimpled in a variety of patterns to give them more control and better trajec