(FORTUNE Magazine) – Eat your divots, Donald Trump. The world's most expensive golf club now belongs to a former car-leasing honcho named Michael Pascucci. Pascucci is building Sebonack, a 7,200-yard, 18-hole course set to open in the summer of 2005 in Southampton, N.Y., nestled between two of the world's snootiest courses, Shinnecock and National.

Pascucci, 67, hasn't priced memberships yet but says he'll probably sell them this autumn for between $450,000 and $650,000, plus $12,000 in annual dues. That beats Japan's Kognai Country Club, where memberships have dropped to $365,000, from $2.8 million, over the past 15 years. Pascucci already has ten "founding members" who have paid $1.5 million each, including Richard Santulli of NetJets, Johan Rupert of Richemont, the luxury goods company, and Sal Nuzzo, former chairman of Hazeltine. This august group will recommend other friends as members from the U.S. and overseas, says Pascucci, who also owns television station WLNY on Long Island. "I'm looking at five to seven years to build up to about 175 members," he says.

Pascucci, who made his fortune through the sale of his Oxford Resources car-leasing business to Barnett Bank for $660 million in 1997, didn't become a golf nut until he took up the game at 35. He got hooked after he bought a place in Florida near Jack Nicklaus, who is designing Sebonack.

The land itself overlooks Great Peconic Bay and Cold Spring Pond, and 14 holes will have water views. Pascucci bought the parcel for $45 million from the electrical workers' union in 2001 and is spending another $45 million on construction. (Trump himself passed on the property because he felt that the town would impose strict environmental limitations on any construction.) But unlike Trump, who owns a handful of other golf courses, Pascucci had another motive for building Sebonack. If you build the course, he points out, "You are definitely assured of a membership." --Janet Guyon