The article discusses the implications of the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills on the tribe it was named for, Shinnecock Nation. Peter Smith walks the golden landscape of Shinnecock Hills, radiating the contentment of a man at one with the Earth. His people, the Shinnecock Indians, have lived in this corner of Long Island for hundreds of years. Long after they sold their land--or it was taken from them, depending on your bent--the tribe maintained a connection with the windswept shores of Shinnecock Bay, particularly a 300-acre tract in Southampton Township that gave rise to the famous golf course that bears their name. Peter was superintendent when Shinnecock Hills reclaimed the U.S. Open in 1986, after a 90-year wait, and he was still overseeing the grounds crew when the Open returned in 1995. But Smith will not be on hand next week when the national championship is again played at Shinnecock. He died in 2002, at age 47, and lives on only through the magic of video-tape. About 650 Shinnecocks live on an 800-acre reservation a mile south of Shinnecock Hills, and almost all of them have stories about the famous course that bears their name. Like chocolate is to the natives of Hershey, Pa., so is Shinnecock Hills Golf Club to members of the tribe. Tribal members still have a deep attachment to the 113-year-old course. Theirs is a land-based spirituality that coexists on the reservation with TV evangelism and the Shinnecock Presbyterian Church, the oldest continuous reformed Indian church in the U.S., dating to the 1740s. With their history of disenfranchisement, the Shinnecocks are particularly sensitive to slights coming from their namesake golf course, which for so long was a source of pride and recognition.