Feature: coursework: two options for local golfers seeking challenge, and a good time.

• Author: Mangan, George

Long Island National

Long Island National Golf Course is no pretender. From a 153-acre potato farm, golf course architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. has shaped and crafted a masterpiece accessible to all for their golfing pleasure.

Jones was inspired to move between 800,000 and a million cubic yards of earth so that rolling contours underscore windswept and fescue dunes with the expected sea breezes, while maintaining the area's character and still providing variation. Granted, a tuberous mound to the left of No. 16 green reminded Jones of Balybunion, the world famous golf course in Ireland. Nevertheless, Long Island National is a unique jewel that illuminates the landscape of eastern Long Island.

If the true measure of art is to wed delight with learning, Long Island National is an enduring piece of sculpture. A two and a half hour drive from Manhattan, the Riverhead course affords both scratch and recreational golfers an opportunity to hone and practice their skills without the salubrious doses of frustration so often encountered in courses that put difficulty above pleasure. The slope, degree of difficulty, ranges from 114 to 132. On this par 71 course are four sets of tees measuring 6,868 yards from the tips to 5,006 yards at the silver.

Quantity, however, doesn't overshadow quality, and never did. Greg Dubois, grow-in superintendent for Long Island National and currently...