Golf in Maine

Maine golf occupies a unique position in New England: a state of immense geographic variety, from the genteel southern-coast resort towns of York County to the remote frontier outposts of Aroostook County near the Canadian border, with the entire spectrum of Maine's character playing out across more than 110 courses in between.

The season defines everything. Golf in Maine runs from roughly late May through early October, compressed by a climate that brings genuine winter and brief, luminous summers. That brevity intensifies the pleasure: a Tuesday afternoon round in July, with the afternoon light slanting through the pines and the temperature in the mid-70s, carries a quality that golfers in year-round climates rarely experience.

Southern Maine's York County corridor is the most densely served region, where the beach-resort communities of Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Ogunquit, and York have supported golf clubs since the late 19th century. Cape Arundel Golf Club in Kennebunkport dates to 1897; York Golf and Tennis Club opened two years later. This is the most resort-oriented golf territory in the state, where ocean views and summer-colony tradition combine to produce a particular kind of recreational culture.

Greater Portland anchors the center of Maine's golf landscape, with Riverside Golf Course's 27 holes providing the metro's accessible recreational core and a ring of private clubs extending north through Falmouth, Cumberland, and the Sebago Lake communities. This is where density meets quality, more options within 30 minutes than anywhere else in the state.

The Midcoast (the rocky, indented shoreline from Brunswick through the Penobscot Bay communities of Rockland, Camden, and Castine) offers the most scenically dramatic golf in Maine. The Samoset Resort's course in Rockport plays directly along the Penobscot Bay shoreline. Island courses on Chebeague, North Haven, and Islesboro are accessible by ferry. Kebo Valley Golf Club in Bar Harbor, dating to 1888, may be the most historically significant course in the state, set on Mount Desert Island within sight of Acadia's granite peaks.

Western Maine's Oxford Hills and Carrabassett Valley bring a different dimension: mountain golf, where Sunday River Golf Club and Sugarloaf Golf Club occupy dramatic terrain at the base of two of New England's most celebrated ski resorts. These courses extend the recreational season for resort communities whose winters are their economic foundation.

The deep north (the Penobscot County lake country, the Aroostook County potato plains, the St. John Valley's Acadian French communities) is where Maine golf becomes genuinely remote. Fort Kent Golf Club operates at the northern terminus of Route 1; Caribou Country Club serves one of the northernmost cities in the eastern United States; Saint Croix Country Club in Calais faces Canada across the river. Nine holes is the standard format up here, and that is entirely appropriate: the golf is secondary to the landscape, which is unlike anything else in New England.