Golf Courses near the Cabins

Beyond Malone Golf Club, twelve golf clubs that are open in the 2026 season lie between about 44 and 69 road miles from the cabins: south on NY 30 to Saranac Inn, Ray Brook, Lake Placid and Tupper Lake, west on US 11 to Potsdam, Canton and the St. Lawrence near Massena, and east to Champlain and the shore of Lake Champlain at Plattsburgh. Among them are three Seymour Dunn courses, a Donald Ross course, a mountain course Alister MacKenzie remodeled in 1931 and a resort course that has been in play since 1890. Here they are nearest first, with how each plays, its 2026 rates and how to book.

The courses at a glance

Malone Golf Club, with its East and West courses, is the home course for a stay and has its own guide. For the shape of a golf trip, with which cabin suits a foursome and a two-day plan, see golf trips from the cabins. The table below lists every other club within about an hour and a half, with the yardage from its longest tees as the club or its scorecard gives it.

Road miles are measured from the cabins, and the times are conservative. No golf course is listed in Chateaugay. The Loon Lake course, about 24 road miles south, opened its first nine in 1895 for the guests of the Loon Lake House, gained a second nine in 1926 and closed in 2003 after 108 years, and by 2017 the land had grown back over it. The Loon Lake Mountain fire tower is the reason to drive that way now.

Saranac Inn Golf Club

Saranac Inn is the nearest 18 after Malone, about 44 road miles south: County Route 25 to NY 30, then south past Meacham Lake and Paul Smiths to County Route 46 at Upper Saranac Lake. The course grew in stages. A few holes went in for the resort's guests in 1901, it reached nine holes in 1904, and about six years later Seymour Dunn and his uncle, Willie Dunn Jr., redesigned it as 18. Around 1923 Walter Hagen and Joe Kirkwood played a $1,000 match there against Dunn and Tom Hutchinson.

The scorecard has five sets of tees, from 6,588 yards at the gold to 5,067 at the red, and par 36 on each nine. The club calls the first, a 404-yard par four from the golds, one of the best holes in the Adirondacks, and the second, a three-shot par five, carries the number-one stroke index. The seventh is a long par three with a mound guarding the green, the eighth is a short par four that strong players can almost drive, to a large rolling green, and the ninth is a par five that finishes on the three-tier green. The 11th, a par four, is often called the toughest hole on the course; the 12th asks for a blind second shot to one of the few flat greens; the 16th is a long par three whose green slopes hard from back to front; and the 17th, 423 yards from the golds, rewards a tee shot kept left. The round ends with a par five to a raised green.

The greens and tees are bent grass and the course is fully irrigated. Besides the full round, the rates page posts a twilight rate after 3 p.m. of $50 with a cart or $40 walking, the same prices for its ten-hole round, and a resident rate of $50 with a cart for 18. The practice area has a driving range, a practice bunker and a large putting green, and a beverage cart works the course. Summer tee times start at 7 a.m., seven days a week; book on the club's TeeWire page or with the pro shop at 518-891-1402. For lunch or a walk on the way back north, see Saranac Lake and Paul Smiths.

Saranac Lake Golf Club in Ray Brook

The Saranac Lake Golf Club is a public nine on NY 86 in Ray Brook, between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, about 48 road miles from the cabins. Alex Findlay laid it out in 1919. It plays 2,949 yards from the longest tees to a par of 36, with a course rating of 34.8 and a slope of 117, and twice around makes a full 18. No tee time is needed, so it is the course to keep in reserve for a day when the bigger courses are booked. Its 2026 leagues played on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, so a morning round finds the most room.

Potsdam Town & Country Club

Potsdam is the nearest course to the west, about 51 road miles: north to Malone, west on US 11 to Potsdam, then south on NY 56 to the club at 6194 State Highway 56. It is a semi-private club that sells daily rounds, and its scorecard credits Scott Witter with the front nine and Craig Wood and Stanley Sisson with the back.

From the blue tees it measures 6,533 yards to a par of 72, with a course rating of 71.8 and a slope of 134, the highest of the slopes quoted on this page. The white tees play 6,111 yards (69.9 and 129), the gold 5,114 (65.5 and 109) and the red 4,859 (68.8 and 117). Par fives open and close the front nine, at 526 yards for the 1st and 534 for the 9th, and the back nine starts with another, the 551-yard 10th, the longest hole on the course; the last par five is the 476-yard 16th. The 7th, a 396-yard par four, is the hardest hole going out, and the 12th, a 374-yard par four, carries the number-one stroke index. The par threes run from 138 yards at the 3rd to 203 at the 6th. The club names the 4th its signature hole, a par four of 384 yards from the blue tees and 350 from the whites, where the approach crosses the stream to a green backed by a pond and two fountains.

The posted daily rates are $20 for nine holes walking and $38 with a cart, and $30 for 18 walking and $48 with a cart. After 5 p.m. the twilight rate is $35, and on Sundays and Tuesdays 18 holes with a cart is $40. Book by phone with the pro shop at (315) 265-2141. The scorecard asks every player to register at the shop, wear proper golf attire and keep carts 30 feet from greens and tees, and it allows no private coolers or alcoholic drinks on the property. The rest of the town is in Potsdam and Canton.

The River Course at Louisville Landing

The River Course sits on the St. Lawrence west of Massena, about 52 road miles from the cabins, and the Town of Louisville has run it as a public course, under the name Louisville Landing Recreation, since 2021. It is a par 71, and the club's own pages give it 6,602 to 6,670 yards from the longest tees. The front nine runs through woods and has three par threes, three par fours and three par fives. The back nine turns toward the river, with views of it from most holes, and the river comes into play on the 17th and 18th.

The director of golf, Perry French, is a PGA professional who grew up in Massena, and the shop, open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., offers lessons, club fitting and repairs. Book a tee time online through the club's foreUp page or at (315) 769-2293. Season passes come in separate versions for U.S. and Canadian members. For the rest of a day on the river, see Massena and the Eisenhower Lock.

Whiteface Club & Resort

The Whiteface Club's course lies on the shore of Lake Placid, about 52 road miles from the cabins, at 373 Whiteface Inn Lane off NY 86. The club dates the course to 1898, when it opened as six holes beside the lake, and in 1933 John Van Kleek and Walter Hagen redesigned it as the 18 played today. Babe Ruth and Arnold Palmer are among the golfers it has drawn. It measures 6,445 yards to a par of 72, with clover-shaped greens, strategic bunkering and views of Whiteface Mountain. Golfweek ranked it fourth among New York's classic courses and 11th overall in the state in 2014.

In 2026 the course opened on May 8. Golfers book through the Chrono-Golf by Lightspeed app, at any hour, or by calling the pro shop at 518-523-PUTT, and they may walk or ride at any time. Proper golf attire is required and only soft spikes are allowed. The Café on the Green sits behind the first tee, and the Moose Lodge Boathouse is on the lake shore, both with indoor and outdoor seating. The club is a sister property of the Mirror Lake Inn in the village, which sells a golf package with unlimited golf at Whiteface.

The Lake Placid Club courses

The Lake Placid Club at 88 Morningside Drive bills itself as the only 45-hole golf club in the Adirondacks, about 53 road miles from the cabins. Each of its three courses takes tee times online on its own booking page, or call (518) 523-4460.

The Links

Seymour Dunn laid out the Links in 1909 as a true links: wide-open fairways and large, rolling greens. The club now gives it 7,052 yards, with a course rating of 72.5 and a slope of 129 from the gold tees. Dunn was known for his par threes, and the Links has six of them. The 9th and 11th are the shortest; the 11th has bunkers on three sides, and a shot that misses right leaves a pitch up to a green 30 feet above. The 8th, a 416-yard par four, has the best view from the tee on the course. The 10th, 445 yards, starts with a blind tee shot uphill and into the wind, and the 6th is a par four that dips twice, which a long hitter can reach in two. The 18th is longer than it looks and has the smallest green on the course.

The Mountain

Alexander Findlay laid out the Mountain in 1910, and Alister MacKenzie, the architect of Cypress Point and Augusta National, remodeled it in 1931. It is shorter than the Links, with smaller greens, more trees along the fairways, more hills and more blind shots, and the gold tees carry a rating of 71.3 and a slope of 126. The 3rd asks for a drive of about 200 yards to carry the bend and then a 175-yard approach uphill to a steeply sloping green. Mount Marcy, the highest peak in New York, is in view from the 4th tee, and the 7th looks toward the Sentinel Range. The 10th, a 631-yard par five with woods all down the right, is the hole the club says Jack Nicklaus liked best on the course. The 17th starts with a nearly blind tee shot uphill, and the 18th finishes uphill to a green bunkered on three sides.

The Pristine Nine

Findlay also laid out the Pristine Nine in 1910: seven par threes from 90 to 200 yards and two par fours of 260 and 270 yards that a long hitter can drive. The greens are small and rolling, the tee shot at the 7th carries a pond, and moose are known to wander onto the course and swim in that pond. A round takes about an hour and a half. In 2026 it cost $50 walking at any hour, or $60 with a cart before 3 p.m. and $50 after.

Rates and rules at the club

On the 18-hole courses the 2026 rates include a cart and drop through the day, the posted prices already include a $10 discount for booking online, players 18 and under with a student ID pay $65, and a second round the same day is $40. A cart rents for $25 and clubs for $35. Students ride a cart only with an adult 21 or older who holds a valid driver's license. For the rest of a Lake Placid day, see Lake Placid and Whiteface and the Olympic sites.

Craig Wood Golf Course

Craig Wood is Lake Placid's town course, owned and run by the Town of North Elba, at 141 Country Club Road, where the club's range runs along NY 73, about 56 road miles from the cabins. Seymour Dunn, who lived in Lake Placid, designed it in 1925, and it plays 6,554 yards to a par of 72. The club singles out the 18th, which wants a precise drive over a ravine and then an uphill iron to a sloping green guarded by trees and a fairway bunker.

The man it is named for was a Lake Placid native. Craig Wood won the 1941 Masters, played on three Ryder Cup teams, once drove a ball 430 yards on the Old Course at St. Andrews, and entered the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2008. He was also on the wrong end of Gene Sarazen's double eagle at the 1935 Masters, the shot remembered by Sarazen's Bridge at Augusta's 15th. He is buried in the North Elba Cemetery on Old Military Road.

The 2026 rates split the year in two. In the peak season, May 24 to October 12 if the weather allows, nine holes are $35 with a $10 cart, 18 holes after 3 p.m. are $35, and a pull cart for nine is $3. Outside the peak season 18 holes are $35, nine are $25 and 18 after 3 p.m. are $25, with the same cart prices. The driving and iron range at the entrance has a ball dispenser and a gazebo for shelter from a shower, and there are chipping and putting areas and a PGA professional for lessons. Book online or at 518-523-9811.

The Appleton course at St. Lawrence University

The Oliver D. Appleton Golf Course adjoins the St. Lawrence University campus in Canton, about 59 road miles from the cabins: west on US 11 through Potsdam to Canton. It began in 1926 as nine holes by Devereux Emmet, and Geoffrey Cornish later added a second nine; the course marked its 100th anniversary in 2026. It is an 18-hole par 72 in a wooded setting that measures 6,698 yards from the championship tees, 6,207 from the whites, 5,747 from the golds and 5,030 from the scarlet and brown tees.

The course welcomes daily-fee players and outings. Its rates page lists $20 for nine holes and $30 for 18 walking, with a cart at $10 for nine and $15 for 18; the daily rates carry no date, so confirm the price when you book. Tee times are online, and the director of golf, Scott Nickerson, takes calls about groups at (315) 386-4600. The Best Western University Inn, beside the campus, sells golf packages with the course.

North Country Golf Club in Champlain

North Country Golf Club, at 862 Hayford Road in the Town of Champlain, near Rouses Point and the north end of Lake Champlain, is about 60 road miles from the cabins, east on US 11 through Chateaugay. It is an 18-hole par 72 that has been in play since 1936. The Town of Champlain lists it as a semi-private 18 with a restaurant, the North Country Grille, and a bar open to the public, and the 4,000-square-foot clubhouse also holds the pro shop.

From May 1, 2026 the pro shop opened at 7:30 a.m. on weekdays and 7 a.m. on weekends and stayed open until sundown, and the restaurant serves lunch and dinner until it closes for the year on October 30. Tee times book online, or call the pro shop at (518) 297-2582. The club asks every golfer to play the tees that match their game, and it runs a Monday ladies' league, so ask about Monday times. Its location suits a round on the way to or from Montreal or Vermont; crossing the border has the open crossings, and Chazy and the Miner Museum make a stop on the same side of the county.

Tupper Lake Golf Club

Tupper Lake Golf Club, which also calls itself The Course at Tupper Lake, sits at 141 Country Club Road in Tupper Lake, about 61 road miles from the cabins, south on NY 30 past Saranac Inn. Donald Ross, from Dornoch in Scotland, carved it into the side of Mount Morris in 1932. It plays 6,057 yards from the blue tees, 5,264 from the white and 4,840 from the red, to a par of 71. Water comes into play on key holes, the bunkers sit in the fairways and beside the greens, and the club says there is a view of the Adirondack ridgelines from nearly every hole; the 1st and 2nd look toward the High Peaks. An 18-hole irrigation system keeps it in shape from May through October.

It is a public course with no membership needed, and walk-ons are welcome when there is room, though tee times are limited, so call ahead at (518) 359-3701, above all for a weekend. In 2026 nine holes cost $29 walking and $39 riding. Golfers 60 and older pay the senior rate all day, and from 4 p.m. the twilight rate is $23 walking and $33 riding for nine, or $30 and $50 for 18. Range balls are $5. The pro shop's 2026 season began on April 15, with its longest hours, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., from June 9 to September 10. The clubhouse restaurant has a patio with a view of the 18th green and a full bar.

The club also hosts the Tupper Lake Open, a pro-am that reached its 77th year on August 7 to 9, 2026: a practice day with skins and public long-drive and putting contests on the Friday, then 36 holes of stroke play on the weekend. Amateurs are flighted by handicap, and anyone with a verified GHIN handicap can enter. For the non-golfers, the Wild Center and the Tupper Lake Triad hikes are in the same town.

Bluff Point Golf Resort

Bluff Point sits on Lake Champlain about four miles south of Plattsburgh, about 66 road miles from the cabins. Its course opened in 1890 beside the Hotel Champlain, a 500-room resort served by rail and steamship that opened on June 17 of that year, and the club bills itself as America's oldest golf resort. President McKinley made the hotel his summer White House in 1897, and Thomas Edison and Babe Ruth were among its guests. The hotel that replaced the original after a fire in 1910 opened in 1911 and is now Clinton Community College's George Moore Academic and Administrative Building, next to the course.

A. W. Tillinghast, the architect of Winged Foot, Baltusrol and Bethpage Black, is credited with the design, and it is a parkland course with open fairways, well-bunkered sloping greens and cottonwoods about a century old along many holes. Golf listings give it 6,309 yards from the white tees to a par of 72, with a rating of 70.5 and a slope of 126. The 3rd, a 419-yard par four, is the hardest hole, the 4th is a 561-yard par five, the 14th a short par four of 262 yards, and the round ends with two par fives in a row, 541 and 495 yards from the whites. The course record is 64, set in August 2004. From the course you look across the lake to Valcour Island and the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Carts are included in the rates. The club's Sunset Special after 4 p.m. has been $29.95 from Monday to Thursday and $31.95 from Friday to Sunday with a cart, and its golf-and-stay packages put golfers in suites with use of a private sand beach and two docks. Book a tee time online through Chronogolf. Boaters can call the pro shop and find a cart waiting at the resort's docks. The shop opens at 6 a.m. from June 1 to September 1, and after November 1 the course stays open daily with the shop closed: cart keys are left on the front porch, green fees are collected on the course by credit card, and no tee time is needed. Pair it with Valcour Island or a day in Plattsburgh and Lake Champlain.

Adirondack Golf & Country Club in Peru

Adirondack Golf & Country Club is at 88 Golf Road in Peru, just south of Plattsburgh, about 69 road miles from the cabins and the farthest course on this page. Cornish, Silva and Mungeam of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, designed it, and it opened in 1990. The course was nominated for best design by the American Society of Golf Course Architects, and Golf Digest listed it among the five best courses to play in New York in 1994 and 1995. Golf listings give it a par of 72 and about 6,900 yards from the back tees, with the 5th, at 564 yards, as both the longest and the hardest hole.

The club reopened for the 2026 season on Friday, April 3, the earliest opening date posted by any course on this page. It does not post its rates; call the golf shop at 518-643-8403 for the current rate and a tee time. It also has a standing offer for Canadian citizens, who may pay its regular 18-hole rate with a cart in Canadian cash at par, outside its twilight and special rates. The club has cart rentals, lessons, a driving range, a practice green, a lounge and views of the mountains. For the drive east, see the route from Plattsburgh.

Fitting golf into a stay

The courses fall into three directions from the cabins, and each makes a day: a morning round, lunch in town and the drive back for the hot tub.

• South on NY 30. Saranac Inn is the shortest drive of the day trips. Continue to Ray Brook for the nine, or on to Lake Placid, where four courses sit within a few miles of each other. Tupper Lake is a separate day, by way of Saranac Inn.
• West on US 11. Potsdam and Canton are neighboring towns on US 11, so two rounds in a day work for a group that rides, and the River Course near Massena is about as far from the cabins as Potsdam.
• East toward Lake Champlain. North Country Golf Club is the nearest of the three, and Bluff Point and Peru are both just south of Plattsburgh, so a morning at one and an afternoon at the other is an easy day.

A good first trip pairs Malone on the arrival day with one long day south and one west. The golf trips page has day-by-day plans, and the cabins each have a washer and dryer for wet golf clothes.

Season windows and weather

The season runs from April into the fall frosts, and the dates move with the weather each year. In 2026 the first posted opening was Adirondack Golf & Country Club's, on April 3, and Bluff Point keeps its course open after November 1 on the honor system until its closing day.

• Spring. For an April round, start with the clubs that posted April hours in 2026, Adirondack Golf & Country Club, Bluff Point and Tupper Lake, and call before you drive. The Whiteface Club opened on May 8, and North Country's posted hours and the Saranac Lake nine's planned opening day were both May 1.
• Early summer. June has the longest evenings; Potsdam's twilight rate starts at 5 p.m. and Tupper Lake's at 4. Black flies are out from mid-May into June; the bug guide has what works.
• High summer. Book weekend times as soon as each course allows, and check event calendars; the Tupper Lake Open takes over that course in early August.
• Fall. Cool fall mornings bring frost delays, so an afternoon tee time is the safer plan from late September. October rounds come with the color on the drive; see fall foliage, and pack a warm layer.

Malone's averages, from the 1991 to 2020 normals, run from a high of 51°F in April through 77°F in July to 55°F in October; the golf trips page has the month-by-month table.

Tee times, carts and dress

Most of these clubs take tee times online and the rest by phone; the Saranac Lake nine needs none, and Tupper Lake takes walk-ons when there is room. Carts come in the 18-hole rates at the Lake Placid Club and Bluff Point, and most of the other clubs that post rates list walking and riding prices side by side. Whiteface and Potsdam both ask for proper golf attire, so pack a collared shirt, and Whiteface allows soft spikes only. Saranac Inn and Potsdam do not allow you to bring your own alcohol, so leave the cooler in the car. The rates on this page are the ones each club showed in 2026; they change every season, so check the club's page before you go.

Questions

Sources

Facts on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. Hours, fees and schedules change; confirm before you go.

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