Thursday, October 1, 2026
Over the decades, the Five Towns landscape has seen its share of changes. But as businesses have come and gone and the area has become more crowded with housing and commercial development, one landmark has survived it all — the Inwood Country Club, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary.
Before the country club was founded on April 1, 1901, it had been a potato field and was purchased by Brooklynite Jacob Wertheim to impress a girl. Over the years, the club attracted people from Brooklyn and Manhattan looking for an escape to the suburbs.
It has also welcomed a number of golf greats. Inwood hosted the PGA Championship in 1921, at which Walter Hagen defeated two-time champion Jim Barnes to claim his first championship win. Two years later, the country club hosted the 27th U.S. Open, at which Bobby Jones defeated Bobby Cruickshank to earn one of his four Open titles.
Woodmere native Gerald Kaminsky, who became a member of the club in 1969, said it weathered changing fortunes during two world wars and the Great Depression. Membership fluctuated over the decades, prompting efforts to attract younger members like Kaminsky, who was 30 at the time and is now 87.
There was prestige, he said, that came with belonging to the country club. “Back then It was a general feeling that there were three primarily Jewish country clubs in the Five Towns with distinct cultures,” Kaminsky said. “Inwood, while further away, was always thought to be extraordinarily special, because it was so much older.”
From the club’s early days until the 1990s, he said, prospective members faced a rigorous initiation process that included meetings with committees and interviews by members and employees. Members were expected to donate as much to charity as they paid in membership dues, and often needed several sponsors.
“I happened to have two friends whose parents had belonged here and sponsored me,” Kaminsky recalled.
Until the 1980s, social norms also shaped life at the club. Kaminsky said that while the organization is now family-friendly, the transition took time. At one time the golf course was almost exclusively for men, while women and children were welcomed at the club’s beach facility in Atlantic Beach.
“Unless it was a special event like Father’s Day, women and children under 12 would go to the beach,” Kaminsky said. “When the men finished, they’d join their families.”
Kaminsky, who worked in the financial services industry, was president of the club from 1980 to 1984 — at a time, he said, when the club’s limited programming and traditional culture were becoming a detriment.
“The club was in deep trouble,” he said. “But by the time I left in 1984, the club was thriving. We brought in the tennis program; the club became more family-friendly. It was quite extraordinary for me to be given that opportunity.”
The club’s atmosphere was what attracted Irving Kaminetsky, a North Woodmere resident who joined in 1985.
“Once you go through the [Peppe Drive] gates, it’s like you’re in another place,” Kaminetsky said. “Looking out at the New York skyline and [Kenndy] airport is spectacular.”
Kaminetsky, who visits the club nearly every day, said he initially joined to use the clay tennis courts before eventually taking up golf. He spends time there as well socializing with fellow members. “It’s like a second home for me,” he said. “I’ve developed a lot of warm friendships here.”
As the club looks to the future, its general manager since April 2025, Burak Meyveci, said he hoped to build on its reputation as one of Long Island’s best-known country clubs.
“Our goal always is to provide the best experiences for our members and their guests,” Meyveci said. “We’re going to continue the legacy and tradition of past members and future members as we move forward.”
