Linus Kiplagat, a 23-year-old Kenyan who lives in Lansing, Mich., won the 39th Shelter Island 10K Saturday in 29 minutes and 45 seconds. 

“It was a two-man race, pretty much from the beginning,” Cliff Clark, one of the scenic, nationally known road race’s founders, said afterward, “though I knew, given his 14:30 split at the 5K mark near the Gardiner’s Bay Country Club, that he wouldn’t set a record.”

“It’s a tough course,” Clark added, “and the second half, which is all uphill from the second bridge — from four and a quarter to five and three-quarter miles — is much tougher than the first.”

Kiplagat and his fellow Kenyan-born competitor and training partner, Isaac Mukundi, 30, ran together for the first two miles, in 9:05, after which Kiplagat, who has had a successful running season, began to open up a gap that he proceeded in the succeeding miles to extend and extend.

Dr. Owen Anderson of Lansing, who has written books on the science of running, oversees running camps in Michigan and Kenya, and coaches Kiplagat and Mukundi, who were making their debuts here, rode with Clark in the press truck, sharing the radio commentary.

The women’s winner was Birtukan Fente Alemu, a native of Ethiopia, in 33:40. She was 14th over all. 

The fourth-place finisher, Tadesse Yae Dabi, 29, was on his way to winning this race two years ago when he ran onto — rather than around — Fiske Field because a marshal was too slow in closing a section of snow fencing that had been opened so the press truck, transporting photographers to the finish line, could pass through. 

Mary Ellen Adipietro, the race director — a volunteer, as is everyone connected with the race, including her husband, Dr. Frank Adipietro — vowed at the time that it wouldn’t happen again, and it hasn’t.

Clark said the men’s record stood at 28:37 (set by Simon Ndirangu in 2012), and that the women’s record, which he couldn’t recall, would probably be safe for a long while.

There were some familiar faces in the top group: Nick Lemon, 25, a former Gubbins Running Ahead employee who lives in Boston now, placed 11th, in 33:17, and Kira Garry, 25, a part-time Montauker who lives in New York City, was 23rd, in 36:09, earning her a fourth-place finish among the women.

Lemon said he’d never run on Shelter Island before, “because I was always working on Saturdays.” It was, he added, his first 10K on the roads, and, he had learned, “much harder than on a track,” where his best has been a 31:22.

Garry, a Yale graduate whose parents, Bill and Louisa, traversed the course on bicycles, runs for the Central Park Track Club. It was her first time running Shelter Island too, and, yes, “it was hard . . . I went out a little too hard at the beginning.” 

Moreover, Erik Engstrom, a county cross-country champion when he was a student at East Hampton High School, placed 25th, in 37:06. His former Bonac teammate Erik Perez was 34th, in 37:57.

The male masters winner, in 31:59, and the seventh-place finisher, was Mengistu Tabor Nebsi, 40.

Clark said there were about 1,600 participants in all — 10K runners and 5K runners and walkers — their entry fees benefiting the Shelter Island Community Fund, the Timothy Hill Ranch for at-risk youth in Riverhead, and East End Hospice.

Lindsey Gallagher, Shelter Island High School’s salutatorian and a four-time county cross-country champion, ran with Joan Benoit Samuelson, the former Olympian, who, according to Clark, “loves Shelter Island, and she really loves the kids.”

“I look up to her a lot — it was fun,” Gallagher said after crossing the line in 57th place, in 41:57. Benoit Samuelson, who is 61, ran the 6.2-mile distance in 42:01. Bill Rodgers, 70, the former four-time Boston and New York City Marathon winner, who, like Benoit Samuelson, is a regular Shelter Island 10K attendee, did not run this time owing to a hamstring pull. Gallagher agreed that if she could run as fast as her running partner when she hit 60, she’d be thrilled. 

She’s going to Washington University in St. Louis in the fall, buoyed by academic and athletic scholarships.

Another stellar Shelter Island High School runner, Kal Lewis, who recently won the state’s Division II 1,600-meter championship, in 4:15 — his second statewide win, the other having come last fall in the Class D cross-country race — was reportedly on his way back from a regional race in North Carolina.

When it was noted during Monday’s conversation with Clark that it seemed extraordinary that Shelter Island kept turning out highly competitive runners even though the school didn’t have a track, he said, admittedly somewhat tongue in cheek, “Runners can run anywhere, tracks are for spectators.”

One reason Shelter Island kept turning out talented high school runners had to do, he thought, with the race itself, and with Shelter Island’s popular 5K in the fall.

“Shelter Island has become a long-distance running mecca, Shelter Island parents put the elite runners up, their kids get to meet them, and a lot grow up wanting to be like them.”

Planning for the U.S. Open played this past week at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton began at least two years ago in order to assure that the 30,000 fans who passed through the entrance gates each day, and those who were lucky enough to play in the field, had the best time possible.

But if it weren’t for the nearly 4,500 volunteers, many of whom came from the East End, it would have been a different story entirely.

“Our volunteers are truly the backbone of the success of the tournament,” Mike Davis, the United States Golf Association’s chief executive officer, said. “Without their commitment, this tournament just doesn’t happen.”

The U.S.G.A. said it had volunteers from 49 states and from 16 countries, adding up to more than 90,000 hours of time donated. “Their passion for the sport of golf is just amazing,” Davis added.

Even the pros who played at Shinnecock appreciated the effort the volunteers put forth. “We know how much it takes to staff a tournament, and I, myself, appreciate all that the volunteers do,” said Steve Stricker, a 12-time winner on the P.G.A. tour, during Tuesday’s practice rounds.

“I think all the guys on the tour are very appreciative of them,” said Jim Furyk, the 2003 Open winner. “Golf tournaments would never happen without volunteers. And I have to say that here at Shinnecock they’ve been great.”

“This is my third Open championship,” said Marianne Brackney of Columbia, Md., a volunteer at the corporate hospitality tents along the eighth hole fairway, where she checked for proper identification. “Before he passed away, my husband and I loved working together at various tournaments around the country. I still love doing this and have such wonderful memories.” 

Brackney was unsure if she would attend the Open next year, which is to be held at Pebble Beach in Carmel, Calif. “It’s not easy to find a hotel near the course there,” she said. “But I’m still looking into it.”

Brett Clark of Philadelphia, a three-time Open volunteer who served as a grandstand marshal on the 14th hole, avoided the cost of a pricey hotel by securing a $30-per-day campsite at the Wildwood State Park campground in Wading River, about 15 miles northwest of the course. “It’s a cheap alternative, and it worked out great for me,” he said. “The traffic was not all that bad for my shift, and Shinnecock is a beautiful course. I’m having a great time.”

“I’ve done seven consecutive Opens in a row now,” said Dave Brumby of Lake Charles, La., at the first hole’s green, where he was a marshal. Brumby rented a house with five of his golfing colleagues in Sag Harbor for the week. “We’ve already signed up to be volunteers at Pebble Beach next June. We all have such a great time doing it.”

“I’ve never been a volunteer at a golf tournament, but I’m so glad I did it,” said Tom Vallance, who came down from Toronto to work as a marshal on the practice green. “The only downside was the traffic on some days, depending on the shift I had. But it was great to be so close to the players. I’ll never forget it.”

As aforesaid, a lot of East End residents, including this writer, raised their hands when asked to man the Open’s 23 volunteer committees.

One of them, Joe Bolomey of East Hampton, said it was the fourth Open he’d worked at Shinnecock. Bolomey so loves golf that he sleeps in his truck just about every Saturday night so he can be assured of an early tee time at Montauk Downs. Thanks to Kevin Smith, Montauk’s longtime pro, Bolomey and his group of fellow golfers were assigned to be marshals at the sixth hole for the entirety of the championship.

“We have a great group of people here working together on this hole — I would never miss this in the world,” Bolomey said from the right-side fairway as Tiger Woods was readying to tee off.  Bolomey almost made the Open as a caddie for his brother, A.J., who tried five times to qualify for it. “He almost did one year — he was so close.” A.J. now works at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C., where he also serves as the president’s caddie when he plays there.

“I’m having a great time watching the pros play,” said Justin Waterman of Southampton, who was keeping a close eye on the driving range. “Actually, there are a lot of us volunteers here on the range, so there’s not exactly much to do. Which is fine with me. It gives me a chance to really focus on watching them hit.”

This writer signed up a year ago to be a volunteer on the leaderboards committee. Sadly, I was sidelined for part of the week by an unforeseen family matter out of state. 

That said, I will have another chance to be a volunteer here in 2026, and as for Pebble Beach, another iconic course, I may travel there next June to lend a hand where I can.

Thursday, June 28

LITTLE LEAGUE, District 36 tournament, Bellport-East Hampton 11-12 softball winner at North Shore, 5:45 p.m.

WOMEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Bono Plumbing vs. Groundworks, 7 p.m., and Police Benevolent Association vs. Schenck Fuels, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Friday, June 29

MONTAUK PLAYHOUSE, tour of planned aquatics and cultural arts centers, 240 Edgemere Street, 5 p.m.

LITTLE LEAGUE, District 36 tournament, East Hampton’s 9-10 baseball team at Sag Harbor, 5:45 p.m., and final game of 11-12 girls softball tourney, if necessary, East Hampton High School, 5:45 p.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, McGuire Landscaping vs. Marcello Masonry, 7 p.m., and Wainscott Landscaping vs. Corner Bar, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett. 

Saturday, June 30

LITTLE LEAGUE, District 36 tournament, 9-10 and 11-12 baseball, Southampton at East Hampton, Pantigo fields, 10 a.m.

BENEFIT TENNIS, Ellen Hermanson Foundation fund-raiser with adult round robin, match play and activities for children, and barbecue, Hampton Racquet, Buckskill Road, East Hampton, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

RIDING, Stony Hill Stables Foundation fund-raiser, Stony Hill Stables, Town Lane, Amagansett, 6-8 p.m.

Monday, July 2

LITTLE LEAGUE, District 36 tournament, 11-12 baseball, East Hampton at Sag Harbor, 5:45 p.m.

Tuesday, July 3

LITTLE LEAGUE, District 36 tournament, 9-10 baseball, Hampton Bays at East Hampton, and 11-12 baseball, Moriches at East Hampton, Pantigo fields, 5:45 p.m.

Wednesday, July 4

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 league, Bonac F.C. vs. F.C. Tuxpan, 6:30 p.m.; Sag Harbor United vs. Maidstone Market, 7:25, and Tortorella Pools vs. Hampton F.C.-Pool Shark, 8:20, Herrick Park, East Hampton.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, games at 7 and 8:15 p.m., Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

I.T.U. Nominee

The I-Tri program founded here by Theresa Roden is, according to an I-Tri release, the sole United States nominee to receive in September the International Triathlon Union’s women’s committee’s award of excellence.

The head of the women’s committee, Tomoko Wada, has said, according to the release, “Gender equality is a central element of the work that I.T.U. [the world governing body for the sport] does, and has always been in the DNA of triathlon. . . . There are people the world over doing vital work that helps women, young and old, discover triathlon and to overcome the barriers to participation. This award shines a light on that work. . . .”

“It is incredibly gratifying,” Roden said, “that although we are still a ‘small’ organization that our model is being recognized for promoting social change and empowerment for girls through sport. This is an incredible honor.”

Benefit Tennis

The Ellen Hermanson Foundation will benefit from “a family day of tennis” at Hampton Racquet, off Buckskill Road in East Hampton, a day that is to include an adult round robin, match play for children, children’s activities, and a barbecue, according to a release. Beginners will be welcomed. Tickets cost $50 for families and $20 for individuals. The rain date is Sunday.

The Ellen Hermanson Foundation, established by Dr. Julie Ratner following the death of Ellen Hermanson, her sister, from breast cancer, provides all manner of support for those who have been diagnosed with the disease. “No one is ever turned away at the Ellen Hermanson Breast Center at Southampton Hospital,” Ratner has said.

Playhouse Tour

Susan Henkin, the executive director of the Montauk Playhouse Foundation, which is raising money so that a cultural arts and aquatics center can be built there, will give the public a tour of the community center, on Edgemere Street, tomorrow at 5 p.m.

After several years of preparation, the iconic Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton is ready to play host to the world’s best golfers next week at the 118th U.S. Open. Practice rounds begin Monday morning; the tournament is to begin next Thursday.

The eyes of the sporting world will once again be on Shinnecock, which, by the end of next week, will have held the prestigious event five times in three centuries — in 1896, 1986, 1995, 2004, and this year. The Open is to return to Shinnecock in 2026.

“We truly are at a national treasure here,” Mike Davis, the chief executive officer of the United States Golf Association, said at a press conference on the club’s grounds two weeks ago. “This is the fourth of the modern Opens being played, starting in 1986, when Raymond Floyd won,” the only golfer in the field that year to break par, by one stroke. 

“We loved the place so much we’re coming back here for another U.S. Open. . . . But you know, Shinnecock is more about modern golf. It has a place in history that is almost unrivaled here in the United States. It’s indeed one of the most important places in all of golf in the United States.”

“We think Mike Davis and his team are about to stage a championship that will be one for the ages,” said Brett Pickett, the president of Shinnecock Hills. “Our club is deeply proud of our role in the founding of American golf, and in the common heritage we share with the United States Golf Association. Some 122 years after our relationship began, we have never ever been closer, and they are the one and only partner we would ever entrust to present Shinnecock to the world.”

Founded in 1891, Shinnecock is the oldest incorporated golf club in the United States, and is one of the five founding member clubs of the U.S.G.A., which was established in 1894.

Now playing at 7,445 yards (449 yards longer than the last Open here), the course has undergone a number of changes since 2004. Golfers will notice 11 new tee boxes, for one, creating new angles. While 14 of the fairways have been narrowed, they remain wider than they were in the past three Opens at Shinnecock, and where they’ve been widened, the new angles effectively narrow them, calling to mind what Raymond Floyd said in analyzing the course in 2004: “The longer player has less room.”

Moreover, Shinnecock is practically treeless now, nature and man having combined to restore it to its original state, and the thick grass that previously surrounded the edges of the greens has been mowed short, as William Flynn, the noted golf architect, intended almost 90 years ago.

“The golf course itself is tremendously significant from an architectural standpoint,” Davis said. “And while I wouldn’t want to disparage any other golf course in the world in terms of which is the best, I dare say that in terms of where elite golf is played I can’t think of a better golf course in the world than Shinnecock Hills. It’s timeless.”

“The architect William Flynn, who came in in the late 1920s, when the course needed to be expanded, made it so. The architecture is just marvelous.”

“If you look at the scorecard it will be 7,445 yards, but we didn’t add distance just to add distance. What we really did, and we did it in concert with the club itself, was bring the shot value back to what Flynn had designed.”

When it comes to the tournament’s logistics, the U.S.G.A. has, with the Town of Southampton, its Police Department, and with other local and state agencies, come up with a comprehensive transportation plan for those attending the event, the details of which follow.

Fans traveling by car from the west during Open week should follow event trailblazing signs to Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach. There will be complimentary parking there, and shuttles will run regularly from 5:30 a.m. each day, continuing for an hour following the conclusion of play. It’s expected to take about 35 minutes each way, depending on traffic conditions.

A limited paid parking option for fans with U.S. Open tickets arriving from the east will be available at the 60-acre Hampton Classic showgrounds off Snake Hollow Road in Bridgehampton. The usopen.com website has more information concerning this.

In partnership with the Long Island Rail Road, there will be expanded service on the Montauk branch to and from the former Southampton College station on the south side of County Road 39. A pedestrian bridge has been set up over the highway there. Schedule and fare information can be had online at mta.info/lirr. The Hampton Jitney is also to run several buses each morning from Manhattan to the Stony Brook Southampton campus. The fare each way is $29.

There is no general parking or parking for disabled fans in the immediate vicinity of the golf club. All other parking is by permit only. Parking restrictions in the vicinity of the championship grounds and within Southampton Town will be closely monitored and enforced, the U.S.G.A. said. Detailed information regarding travel restrictions can be found online at southamptontownny.gov. Handicapped-accessible parking spaces will be available at all championship parking areas for vehicles displaying the appropriate license plates or placards. Full fan information can be found at usopen.com/fan-info.html.

A 37,000-square-foot merchandise pavilion with 400,000 different souvenir items will be open to the public from today through Sunday between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Parking on these days at the Stony Brook Southampton campus will be free.

Daily tickets can still be had online through usopen.com. Those under the age of 18 will be admitted free in the company of a ticketed adult. Those between the ages of 19 and 24 can buy Trophy Club tickets for gallery prices with a student ID.

Claude Beudert, whose good 31-year walk, as it were, with East Hampton High School’s golf team was decidedly not spoiled — during his tenure his teams went a collective 285-68, won 17 league championships, 14 of them between 2001 and 2015, and won county and Long Island championships in 2011 — is now utterly retired.

Which isn’t to say he’s idle. Since retiring as a teacher two years ago, he’s been volunteering with the East Hampton Food Pantry, has been certified as a volunteer at Southampton Hospital, and has continued to work with some students in the district. He swims five days a week at Gurney’s, and plays in pickup basketball games three days a week. 

“I’d also like to travel,” he said during a conversation the other day at The Star. “My mother’s family came from Genoa, my father’s came from Alsace-Lorraine. . . .”

“Were they French . . . Germans?”

“It all depended on who won the last war,” he said.

Asked to name the top golfers he’d coached, Beudert had no problem: Zach Grossman, Turner Foster, Ian Lynch, Alex Tekulsky, Shane Hannabury, and Kevin Somers, who’s now on the Maidstone Club’s staff. 

“Zach was the best golfer on Long Island; he won the counties and was all-state. Turner was the county champ last year and the runner-up this year. He would have been all-state this year had he gone.” Foster forwent the state tourney so he could try to qualify for the U.S. Open Monday in New Jersey. “Ian went to the states three years. Shane and Alex, who tied for the county championship and lost in a playoff, went to the states one year. . . .”

“No,” said Beudert, in answer to another question, “we never had an off- year. Our worst was 7-5. We were just two shots away from sharing the league title this year.”

He demurred when given a chance to toot his own horn, ascribing the teams’ successes over the years to the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett, the Maidstone Club in East Hampton, and to the management at Poxabogue, the public course in Sagaponack.

“Being able to practice on Maidstone’s East course and being able to use its driving range and bunkered putting green, which you can shoot onto from 75 yards out, has been a tremendous help. We play our home matches at South Fork. They’ve bent over backward and they don’t have to. The members love to see the kids. . . . For the past two years they’ve given a $1,000 scholarship to a senior on the team. Luke Vaziri won it last year, Hunter Medler this year. Nobody in our league has the experience that we do with these three facilities.”

“Every kid can hit the ball a ton,” he added, “but it’s the work we’ve done on our short games, around the greens . . . our course management that has paid off.”

South Fork, he said, “used to be the toughest course in the league, when we played on the old nine holes. It was a nine-hole course then. Our kids learned where to hit it. Noyac [Pierson’s home course] is tough — you never have a level lie there. Westhampton, which they’ve changed a lot, is the toughest now. They’ve put traps in different spots, some in the middle of fairways, the greens are fast and some have been made bigger. Southampton has been changed too — they’ve taken down a lot of trees, just like Shinnecock.”

Asked if he hadn’t thought about amassing 300 wins, Beudert, who already is among the state’s winningest golf coaches, said, “No, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Tony Gamboli of Sayville, who retired about a decade ago, has over 600. I never would have caught him.”

As a teenager, Beudert, who went on to play golf all four years at Gettysburg College, lived in Cold Spring Harbor, “which is on the border with Suffolk. It was in the late ’60s, early ’70s. At first, before our A.D. petitioned to play only Nassau teams, we played a lot of Suffolk schools. We’d drive all the way out to Kings Park. I played in a county golf championship at Rock Hill, which isn’t far from here. We’d tee it up and let it fly over the dinkly little trees. They’re huge now. My junior and senior year we played the county championship at Bethpage.”

Bethpage was the scene of East Hampton’s greatest golfing moment, when the team, led by Grossman, who’d returned here from a hiatus in South Carolina, defeated Farmingdale, the perennial Nassau champ, to win the Long Island championship in 2011.

Bethpage Black was Farmingdale’s home course, the pins were the same ones used in the U.S. Open there in 2009, but no matter. East Hampton, following a two-hour-and-15-minute drive, won the encounter 7-2 (four individual wins plus 3 points for carding the lower aggregate score). 

The Nassau team’s coach was so certain the championship cup wouldn’t be surrendered that he left it at home 10 miles away. Beudert, once the results were known, asked him to please go get it. 

“It was a 25-minute wait,” he said at the time, “but it was worth it. . . . It was really like going into the lions’ den — Farmingdale had won the Nassau championship the past three years, it had won the Long Island championship two years in a row, and they had won Nassau’s championship this year by 51 shots.”

It was the second feather in Beudert’s coaching cap: He was John Goodman’s co-coach when East Hampton’s girls tennis team won the county championship in 1980. 

Asked at the time how he compared the golf championship to the tennis one, Beudert said, with a laugh, “I carried John Goodman through that last one — this one I did on my own. Both teams were focused and talented, but I’d say this team loves their sport more than any other team I’ve ever coached.”

He didn’t want the interview to pass without acknowledging his family, the outgoing outgoing coach said. “My family should be thanked. They’ve been so supportive. In a family you make sacrifices to make each other’s life better. We’ve always been there for each other. Any coach would have to thank his family. . . . You know, it’s going to be difficult to find coaches more and more. There are not that many teachers who live here anymore. They can’t afford it. They’re living in Rocky Point, in Quogue, in Shirley. . . . To get to our 6 a.m. pickup basketball game at the high school they’ve got to be at the Canal by 5:30. . . . Even finding junior high coaches is going to be difficult.”

“Then I want to give a shout-out to my assistants, Peter Bologna and Ralph Naglieri, who’ve have been the jayvee coaches. They have the love I have for the game and it shows when they’re with the kids.” 

Asked if he had ever wanted to turn pro, Beudert smiled and said, “I always thought I would have been a great club pro, because I liked cheeseburgers and draft beer. . . . Oh, I also have time now to do Sudoku and crossword puzzles, but when it gets to Thursday it’s like I’ve had a lobotomy. I’m always looking forward to Monday.”

As for the coming U.S. Open at Shinnecock, where, in 1995, he had a moment in the sun as Tom Lehman’s standard-bearer with Lehman leading on the third day, “I’ll go to a practice round. I just want to walk the course. I’ve played it twice, and did okay, though not from the tips.”

East Hampton High School’s Hall of Fame committee has named three athletes, Zach Brenneman (2007), Justin Winter (1982), and Michael Sarlo (1988), as well as the school’s longtime trainer, Randi Cherill, as an honorary member, to its class of 2018. They are to be inducted at homecoming on Sept. 22. 

Brenneman, a men’s lacrosse all-American midfielder when in high school and in college, led Notre Dame to the 2010 National Collegiate Athletic Association final with Duke, scoring a half-dozen goals in those Final Four games, if memory serves. He finished his college career with 100 points, and went on to play the sport professionally on the East and West Coasts.

“Zach definitely was one of the guys who put East Hampton’s lacrosse program on the map,” said his former coach, Ralph Naglieri, who recommended him. “He had an unbelievable career. At a P.A.L. game, when he was a sixth grader, I saw this big, lean lefty receive a pass at speed and, in one motion, finish it into the opposite corner of the cage. ‘Who the heck is that?’ I wondered. It was like a one-touch goal in soccer. Then I heard his father was the Little League commissioner. But, as you say, Tim never pushed him to play baseball, fortunately for me.”

“I brought him up from the jayvee as an eighth grader,” Naglieri continued. “We reached number 10 in the state in his junior year. I remember after a playoff game that year getting calls about him from the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins, asking for directions. He led Notre Dame in scoring in his junior year, and captained the team in his senior year, leading it to a number-one ranking and to its first N.C.A.A. final in its history.”

“One of the things that made him so good was that he could shoot well on the run, often from 15 yards out. It’s the difference between a point guard dribbling in the lane and shooting rather than setting up for a 3-pointer. Zach could dodge and score. He could find the twine.”

According to Mike Burns, who recommended him, “Justin Winter was one of the finest student-athletes in the history of East Hampton High School — his accomplishments in track and football were of the highest level, league, county, or state.”

“He performed with intensity, yet tempered it with humility and the highest degree of sportsmanship. He and Ed Budd brought the football program back after the year of austerity in 1979, when they were freshmen. I still get chills thinking of his 45-yard kickoff return at Westhampton, which sealed the league football title for us in 1981.”

“He was a county finalist in the 100, 200, and 400-meter races all three years. He placed second in the county 400 and ninth at the state meet. Moreover, he anchored the 400-meter and 1,600-meter relay teams, which were undefeated and set school records in his career here. He captained the track team for all three years and was its M.V.P. every year. In short, he was a winner.”

“I guess they needed a role player,” East Hampton Town’s police chief, Michael Sarlo, has been telling his friends after learning he’d been selected. 

A three-sport athlete — as were Brenneman and Winter — Sarlo said during a conversation the other day that he cherishes the friendships he made playing youth and high school sports here, bonds that remain to this day, and the character-building lessons imparted by his coaches — by Jim Nicoletti, his baseball coach, in particular.

“I paid tribute to Coach [Nicoletti] when I was installed as the town’s police chief five years ago. He was my physical education teacher in elementary school. When I was 11, he let me be the team’s batboy — he’d take me over from John Marshall to the field every day, and I’d help at the practices — it was a small team — tossing balls in the dirt for the catcher and first baseman to field. . . .” 

“He taught me just about everything I needed to know about life . . . about being prepared, about the value of practicing in order to meet the demands of challenging situations, about understanding your role, the way you could best contribute to the team, lessons that I’ve valued throughout the years and have helped make me who I am today.”

As the football team’s tight end he often blocked on running plays, despite a badly broken thumb, he contributed in his senior year to the basketball team’s success as a passer and defender, and, still rehabbing the thumb, set a school r.b.i. record in baseball, “until Ross Gload came along.”

“I’m very, very humbled by being a part of this [Hall of Fame] group,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s what the East Hampton community — the coaches, the older guys we looked up to, the friends I played football and basketball and baseball with — has done for me, not what I did for the program.”

Randi Cherill, who oversees Manual and Sports Physical Therapy in Amagansett when she’s not at the high school, has tended to East Hampton High’s athletes for 16 years. In an interview on these pages a while ago she said, “I love the kids. They keep things light, funny. Twenty minutes after school, whether they’re injured or not, they take over my office. Which is fun. . . . Basically, I’m always here, but I love it.”

Injuries she’s treated have included broken and dislocated bones, muscle pulls, ankle sprains, and the like, head and neck injuries being “the scariest,” though undoubtedly her tensest moment as a trainer, she said, occurred when Fred Heckman, who’d been refereeing a jayvee boys basketball game on Dec. 5, 2008, collapsed and went into cardiac arrest.

While she administered CPR, the district’s athletic director, Joe Vas, and John Krupp, a phys ed teacher here at the time, applied a defibrillator, with colleagues of Krupp’s, Rich King and Jason Menu, and Judy Bennett, an emergency medical technician, also helping out. Their quick responses resulted in saving Heckman’s life.

Vas has called Cherill “the best of the best . . . even though she’s an Eagles fan.”

Thursday, June 7

ATHLETIC AWARDS, senior banquet, East Hampton High School, 7 p.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Sag Harbor Fire Department vs. East Hampton Fire Department, 7 p.m., and Corner Bar vs. Thirsty Bubs, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Friday, June 8

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Uihlein’s vs. Corner Bar, 7 p.m., and Montauk Rugby vs. Marcello Masonry, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Saturday, June 9

MONTAUK TRIATHLON, intersection West Lake Drive and Star Island Causeway, 7:30 a.m.

Sunday, June 10

MONTAUK MILE, railroad station to Lions Field, women’s race, 10:30 a.m., men’s, 11, with party at Montauk Brewery to follow.

Monday, June 11

U.S. OPEN, first day of practice rounds, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, 6 a.m.-7 p.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Uihlein’s vs. Thirsty Bubs, 7 p.m., and McGuire Landscaping vs. Sag Harbor Fire Department, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Tuesday, June 12

U.S. OPEN, second day of practice rounds, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, 6 a.m.-7 p.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Wainscott Landscaping vs. East Hampton Fire Department, 7 p.m., and Uihlein’s vs. Marcello Masonry, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Wednesday, June 13

U.S. OPEN, third day of practice rounds, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, 6 a.m.-7 p.m.

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 league, Tortorella Pools vs. Bonac F.C., 6:30 p.m.; Hampton F.C. vs. Maidstone Market, 7:25, and Sag Harbor United vs. F.C. Tuxpan, 8:20, Herrick Park, East Hampton.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, McGuire Landscaping vs. East Hampton Fire Department, 7 p.m., and Harold McMahon Plumbing vs. Corner Bar, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Thursday, June 14

U.S. OPEN, tournament begins, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, from 6 a.m.

This week has been a homecoming for Duane Bock, a Bonacker born and bred, who since graduating from East Hampton High in 1985 has made his way in the world of professional golf, first as a high-level player and then, for the past 13 years, as a caddie on the P.G.A. tour.

He’s in his ninth year with Kevin Kisner, a 34-year-old South Carolinian who is the world’s 30th-ranked player at the moment, and whose chances of winning the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills this week were, said Bock during a conversation at Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo’s house Sunday morning, as good as anybody’s.

“I think Kevin’s chances are great — he’s as good as anybody out there. You don’t have to hit it 300-plus yards here. It will come down to how straight you hit the ball and putting, and he’s a great putter, which will help him. I love our chances. Every tournament we go to now he has an opportunity to win — he’s that good.”

Kisner came very close last August to winning the P.G.A. championship in Charlotte, N.C. He led going into the final day, and took a chance on the 18th fairway that, because there was some mud on the ball, altering its flight, resulted in a double-bogey and a seventh-place finish.

“You do everything you can to win — nobody remembers if you were second or seventh,” said Bock, who when he won the North-South Amateur in 1992, a win that kick-started his playing career, was described as “a young Billy Casper.”

The youngest of Dave and Betty Bock’s three sons — Dave Jr. and Darrell, who’ve also worked in the golf world, being his older brothers — the interviewee was introduced at the age of 4 to the sport by his father, a very talented self-taught golfer, a semipro basketball player, and steely competitor, as this writer can attest.

Reminded of what Dave Bock had once said, to wit, that the only two sports were golf and bowling, his son smiled. “He probably said that because they’re individual sports. In other words, it’s up to you. If you want the job done right do it yourself.”

His father, who often played at the public course at Indian Island in Riverhead, had never pushed him, “though I was always around the game. . . .”

At 13, he started working at the Maidstone Club, first with Dave Spencer, and then, a while later, with Dave Alvarez and Glen Farnsworth. “I worked in the pro shop, I caddied for members and learned how to manage the game, I worked in the bag room, on the driving range. . . . Absolutely, it spurred me on. They really helped me, with my swing, with course management, they gave me opportunities to play, at Maidstone, at National, at Shinnecock. . . . I would caddie for them when they played in Met P.G.A. tournaments. They got me into the game.”

Lee Janzen too had helped, for, after playing with the future two-time Open champion at Maidstone, Bock realized that Janzen’s bad shots were always less bad than his. That knowledge persuaded him to focus even more on his short game, “for it’s chipping and putting around the greens where you will gain the biggest advantage. The average amateur doesn’t practice that. They go out on the driving range and hit away. The year after I played with him at Maidstone he won the U.S. Open — he won it twice. I love it that we learn from others. We watch what the pros do, and then try to follow it. I see that happening with my kids. They’re watching and learning.” 

His father, in turn, caddied for him when, having graduated from Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C., where he enjoyed a stellar Division 1 career, Bock won the North-South Amateur at Pinehurst 2, a course somewhat similar, Rees Jones has said, to Shinnecock. He finished 1992 as the ninth-ranked amateur in the United States, and the next year, with the backing of supporters, began play on the South African tour, along with such pros as Nick Price, Ernie Els, who will be playing here this week, and Retief Goosen, who won the Open the last time it was played at Shinnecock Hills in 2004.

In the summer of ’93 he qualified to play on the Canadian tour, and continued to do so for the next decade.

“Yes, I made a good living,” Bock said in answer to a question. “I was in the top 17 in my first four years Canada. I . . . for whatever reason . . . never won, but I had eight seconds. And when I wasn’t in Canada I was playing in a lot of two and three-day mini-tour tournaments in the Southern states. I won a lot of those, but, finally, around 2004, I just decided that I could no longer put in the constant effort that was required to get onto the P.G.A. tour. I couldn’t quite make it through the third stage of qualifying school.”

“My daughter [Albany] was born then. . . . It’s not just the 30 weeks you’re on the road, but you’ve got to put in the time and effort when you’re home too, you’ve got to practice long hours. Plus, it’s hard to travel with an infant, and I wanted to spend more time with her. . . .”

It had been a tough decision to give it up, he said, after having enjoyed “12 really good, solid years playing this great game all over the world.” He had, he said, “no regrets.”

He remained in the game though, segueing into professional caddying, first with Ken Duke, a fellow Canadian tour competitor, and then with Doug LaBelle before hooking on, in 2009, with Kisner. He had initially toyed with, and then rejected, the idea of coaching, a passion of his, because it would have meant uprooting his family from Morganton, N.C., his wife’s hometown, in the foothills of the Appalachians.

The routing at Shinnecock was the same as it ever was, he said, when asked about the course, which he had walked the day before. “They’ve changed a lot of the tees, and when you add tee boxes you’re also changing the angles of approaches into the fairway, so the fairway bunkers are slightly different from the time I last played there, in ’93. The fairways are fairly generous, not tight as they are in some of the Opens, but if you miss them by more than a couple of yards, you’ll pay. You’ll either be in a fairway bunker or in high fescue.”

As for the undulating and at times elevated greens, “they flow into the fairway, which means you have to be precise coming into them . . . a slight miss of only a couple of yards from the pin and the ball will roll and roll and roll.”

The greens were allowed to dry out severely in 2004, angering the pros, one of whom compared their surfaces to that of a parking lot, though Bock said he was confident the U.S.G.A. had learned its lesson. “They can make them as firm and fast or as soft and slow as they want,” he added. “There’s so much slope around the edges of the greens . . . if they’re too firm you can’t keep a ball on them. They were monitoring them when I was out there yesterday.”

As for the wind, “if there’s none you can hit the ball where you want it to go. But if you add wind you’ve got to account for it. As of now, the forecast seems pretty good. The strongest wind predicted is about 10 miles an hour. The guys can handle that. But if it gets up to between 15 and 20, it will be hard to predict.”

“I would say the front nine is ‘easier’ than the back nine, if that’s the word,” Bock said, in reply to another question. “Number 1, flowing downhill, gives you a fairly easy start. Number 10 is a blind shot. You have to land your shot at 11 on a green the size of this patio. . . . The meat of it is the middle part . . . 9, 10, 11, and 12. We’re starting on 10 on Thursday [at 1:58]. It’s tough to start on 10.”

When he was inducted into East Hampton High School’s Hall of Fame last fall, Bock said there ought to be a Hall of Fame for his wife, Geraldine.

Geraldine, for her part — she caddied for him a couple of times when he was a runner-up on the Canadian tour — said that it was easier now, now that their children, Albany, 15, and Alex, 11, are older. Asked if she played golf, she said, with a smile, “No, I drive the cart.”

Her husband is easing his children into the game just as his father had done with him and his brothers. Albany and Alex will play in junior tournaments this summer, the first of which is to begin a day or two after the Open finishes here. The family also will go to several P.G.A. tournaments together this summer. 

It has, she agreed, been a fun life.

Sarlo and Bock, whose nickname is Dewey, have been friends since they were around 8 years old, playing Biddy basketball together and against each other in Little League. About a dozen from that group of friends, including Pat Bistrian, David DiSunno, Jeff Miller, Jason Menu, and Gavin Menu, all of whom lived, Sarlo said, within biking distance of one another in their early years in East Hampton, got together at the Sarlos’ Saturday night.

Further on the subject of caddying, Bock said, “I’m part of a team. When I played, it was just about flexibility. Kevin has a swing instructor, a caddie, a short-game coach, a strength trainer, a physical therapist. . . . We all have our roles to play. I’m an important part of it. If a caddie and a player are not getting along, the five hours you spend on a course will be very stressful. That’s not the way it is with Kevin and me. That’s not to say there aren’t stressful times, but you get through it. It’s like a marriage.”

On hearing that, Sarlo said, “I’ve observed Duane prepare, I’ve seen him measuring from the edge of the green to the flagstick, jotting down the carry distance off the tee . . . he spends hours on end preparing for every situation. His player relies on him for that knowledge.” 

Asked what it was he loved about golf, the amiable interviewee, folding his arms about him, said, “What I love about it is what you put into it is what you’re going to get out of it. It’s like life; it symbolizes life. If you’re good to people, people will be good to you. In golf you’re not relying on others to call the balls and strikes — if you have a penalty, you call it on yourself, and if you practice you’ll be rewarded with success. . . . You can go out by yourself and have a nice, quiet time, and you can go out with your friends and have a nice day too. You get out of it what you put into it — that’s what I love about the game.”

Thursday, June 14

U.S. OPEN, first-round play, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, from 6:45 a.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Montauk Rugby vs. Corner Bar, 7 p.m., and Wainscott Landscaping vs. Marcello Masonry, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Friday, June 15

U.S. OPEN, second-round play, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, from 6:45 a.m.

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Harold McMahon Plumbing vs. Sag Harbor Fire Department, 7 p.m., and Montauk Rugby vs. Thirsty Bubs, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Saturday, June 16

U.S. OPEN, third-round play, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, from 7 a.m.

SHELTER ISLAND 10K, Shelter Island High School, 5:30 p.m., with Family Fun Festival to follow at the American Legion Hall.

Sunday, June 17

U.S. OPEN, final day, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, from 7 a.m.

Monday, June 18

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Montauk Rugby Club vs. Sag Harbor Fire Department, 7 p.m., and Uihlein’s vs. East Hampton Fire Department, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

Wednesday, June 20

MEN’S SLOW-PITCH, Wainscott Landscaping vs. Thirsty Bubs, 7 p.m., and McGuire Landscaping vs. Corner Bar, 8:15, Terry King ball field, Abraham’s Path, Amagansett.

MEN’S SOCCER, 7-on-7 league, Tortorella Pools vs. Maidstone Market, 6:30 p.m.; Sag Harbor United vs. Bonac F.C., 7:25, and Hampton F.C.-Pool Shark vs. F.C. Tuxpan, 8:20, Herrick Park, East Hampton.