Golf in New York

New York spans a remarkable range of golf terrain, from the private clubs of Long Island's Gold Coast to remote mountain courses in the Adirondacks, and from the urban park layouts of New York City to the country clubs rimming the Finger Lakes. The state's varied geography (shaped by glaciers that carved deep lake valleys, left behind a corrugated upland terrain, and built barrier islands along the Atlantic coast) produces golf settings of almost every character.

Long Island concentrates some of the most storied clubs in the country, particularly along Nassau County's North Shore and in the Southampton and East Hampton corridors of Suffolk County. The Bethpage State Park complex in Nassau County offers multiple courses on public land in the heart of the island. East along the South Fork, the Hamptons clubs and North Fork courses occupy terrain shaped by the Atlantic coast and Long Island Sound. The borough courses of New York City (in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island) serve the city's dense population through park-system golf facilities.

Westchester County's many clubs extend the metropolitan golf corridor north along the Hudson River's east bank. The Hudson Valley counties of Dutchess, Ulster, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, and Columbia offer a range of private clubs in the upland terrain between the river and the Catskill Mountains. Sullivan County in the Catskills supports a cluster of resort and vacation courses in the lake country.

The Capital Region around Albany, Troy, and Schenectady maintains an established club community along the Mohawk and Hudson valleys. Saratoga County, anchored by Saratoga Springs, has a cluster of courses tied to the area's resort and horse-racing traditions. The Finger Lakes region stretches across Monroe, Ontario, Seneca, Cayuga, and surrounding counties. Rochester in Monroe County holds a particularly large golf community, with private clubs, park courses, and the golf corridor around Pittsford and Victor in Ontario County. Central New York's Syracuse courses dot the Onondaga County terrain, while Oneida County has the cluster of courses at the Turning Stone Resort in Vernon and Verona.

Western New York, anchored by the Buffalo and Niagara Falls metro area, has a dense golf corridor with private clubs, public layouts, and courses along the Lake Erie shoreline and the Niagara River. The Southern Tier follows the Susquehanna River drainage, with courses in Broome, Chemung, and Steuben counties serving the Binghamton and Elmira communities. The vast northern tier (from the Adirondack High Peaks through the St. Lawrence and Clinton county border country) has a spread of smaller clubs and resort courses amid mountains and lakes that define the New York North Country.