Active Pursuits

Golf -- The Red Course at Eisenhower Park, East Meadow (tel. 516/572-0327), was home to the 1926 PGA Championship and was a stop for the PGA Seniors Tour in 2003. But it's a public course -- so you can make your own history here, too. Or bring your clubs to Bethpage State Park, 99 Quaker Meeting House Rd., Farmingdale (tel. 516/249-0700), home to the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Open.

Hitting the Beach -- Though the north shore shouldn't be your first choice for beaches -- they tend to be rocky and often quite small -- there are a couple of nice ones that allow for swimming in the calm waters of Long Island Sound or for lounging on the sand. The beach in Governor Alfred E. Smith/Sunken Meadow State Park, Kings Park (tel. 631/269-4333), is 3 miles of sand with tall, glacier-formed bluffs at its western end. Farther east, Wildwood State Park, in Wading River (tel. 631/929-4314), has 2 miles of beach.

Spectator Sports -- Long Island's only major pro sports team is the NHL's New York Islanders, who play 40 of their 80 games from October to April at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale (tel. 800/882-ISLE; www.newyorkislanders.com).