Fishers Island Club - "Sneaking On Story"

My favorite "sneaking on" story has to do with the now famous Fishers Island Club. I was 15 and just learning to golf at Shennecossett, a Donald Ross Course located a block from where I grew up in Groton, Connecticut. My best friends older brother was a scratch golfer and his buddies were all good sticks. The course at Fishers Island loomed across the sound and was a mysterious and mystical place for me at the time. I knew little about it, only having glimpses of the holes you could see from biking or boating around the island. Fishers was a lot more laid back in those days, and mostly undiscovered. The conditions were only average at best, but I had heard stories about how awesome the course was. Anyway, these "golf obsessed" upper aged teenagers used to fill a cooler with beer (the drinking age was younger back then) and get 4 guys into a Boston Whaler, and head out from the shore of Eastern Point around 5pm. After they crossed Fishers Island Sound, they would motor slowly up to the island and anchor the boat just offshore. After filling their golf bags with beer, they would then carry their clubs high on their backs to the shore - having carefully timed the trip for low tide. Then they'd put their golf shoes on, sneak onto the course, and play as many holes as they could until dark. They would then head back in the boat through the dark. Quite an adventure. I wish I could say I had the chance to experience that, but it wasn't until years later that I got to play Fishers legitimately for the first time. I hope some day I can design a course that would be so desirable it would prompt a similar effort by "golf obsessed" youngsters to try to sneak on. But it is highly unlikely I will ever produce anything that can compare to Fishers. Having grown up in its shadow, it's still a mystical place to me.