When Ann Enstine lifted the winner’s trophy at Southampton Golf Club in 2023, she celebrated a notable achievement: her 50th club championship. The living legend of Long Island women’s golf marked the milestone with gusto but otherwise pretty much took it all in stride. After all, her championships started piling up before America landed Neil Armstrong on the moon.
“I’ve been playing tournaments since the 1960s,” she said.
And in each of the past seven decades, she has won at least one club title.
Twelve of those championships, including the first one in 1967 and the 50th last year, came at Seth Raynor-designed Southampton. She also captured an incredible 33 titles at five-time U.S. Open venue Shinnecock Hills about a mile down the road, and five times at Meadow Brook Club, an hour away. She has won more than one club championship in a year several times and held all three titles – at Southampton, Shinnecock and Meadow Brook – in 1997. Could we call that the Long Island Women’s Grand Slam?
“I’m fortunate to belong to three fabulous courses,” she said, adding that she didn’t play to set any records until she saw a milestone on the horizon a couple of years ago. “I didn’t set the goal until late in the process, probably about the time I hit 45 wins, then I started thinking, could I reach 50?”
For her 50th win, she faced three tough opponents in match play.
“I got off to a bad start with the first two, but then I pulled up my socks and got to it,” she said. “The first one, I won on the 16th hole, and the second one, on the 15th. In the final, which was 36 holes, I played very well that day and won it on the 27th.
“I just love match play. It’s incredibly interesting and fun. It brings out my determination and ‘no quit’ attitude. If you have a bad hole, you just forget it and move on. I was amazed during the first two matches at Southampton because the two girls played very well.”
Even though she still works at a family business that her grandfather founded in 1913, Enstine says she plays about 50 rounds per year and carries a 7.3 handicap index. Many if not most of those rounds are tournament level and reflect her love for competitive golf. She qualified several times for the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur and USGA New York state team matches.
She’s a mainstay in Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association events, competing in many of the organization’s 30 tournaments each year. Her team from Meadow Brook has been a perennial winner in the association’s team matches, which involve 800 women from the New York metro area. Enstine twice won the WMGA’s Lann Trophy for lowest score during the year.
Golf has always been a big part of her family life.
“My grandfather was one of the founding members of Southampton and was club champ in 1938,” she said. “I guess I inherited it.”
A nephew, Peter Enstine Jr., is a Southampton men’s champion, and she has two great-nephews working as PGA professionals at Shinnecock.
She started playing as a youngster with her father. “My dad loved the game and I loved playing with him,” she says. “He would hit it a mile and then we’d go look for it. My mother played too, but she took up the game late in life. She was a real good chipper and could use a seven-iron from anywhere.”
“You have to be a positive thinker. You have to believe you can beat anybody any day and go right up to the tee with that idea.” — Anne Enstine
The secrets to Ann Enstine’s success? For one, she knows her own game and plays it.
“I’m kind of short,” she said, “so I need that little extra distance I get from hitting a draw.”
The shot shape plays well on windy Long Island, too, and she points out that it’s a big help on Meadow Brook’s many dogleg holes. Her short game isn’t shabby, either, as attested by her seven holes-in-one.
But her most important secret, Enstine says, is a determination to win.
“You have to be a positive thinker,” she said. “You have to believe you can beat anybody any day and go right up to the tee with that idea.”
With that attitude, Ann Enstine intends to continue winning on the golf course. Championship No. 51 is in her sights.