The folks from the New York Golf Trail (www.nygolftrail.com) have been hitting the golf show circuit for two years. Given the success of the time of the various southern golf trails in Alabama, South Carolina and other states, the time seemed proper for an Empire State route of fine golfing destinations.

In the truest spirit of irony, however, it was difficult to add to the original five courses for a few years. Perhaps courses felt that they were doing just fine on their own, perhaps there were other reasons. It might just be coincidence that the trail has nearly tripled in size since the US economy began its arduous journey toward stability, it might not be.

The trail’s message has stayed true since the beginning: we will provide quality and memorable golf at an affordable rate. The original courses now number thirteen, extending from west of Rochester (Mill Creek Golf Club) to the north country (Malone Golf Club) to the south-central region (Leatherstocking Golf Course).

The design aficionado will have his thirst for great architecture sated along the NY Golf Trail. Golden-age masters of the ilk of Donald Ross (Thendara Golf Club, Sagamore), Devereux Emmet (Leatherstocking) and John Van Kleek (The Whiteface Club & Resort) are joined with the work of Robert Trent Jones, Roger Rulewich, Geoffrey Cornish and Ray Hearn/Paul Albanese. The result is a diverse passel of doglegs and one-shotters worthy of any golfer’s finest efforts.

On a recent trip to the US Open, I had the opportunity to play two of the Trail’s offerings. Since my awareness of the history of the game and its courses developed, I had looked forward to playing the Colgate University and Baseball Hall of Fame courses (at least that’s how I referred to them!) Seven Oaks Golf Course in Hamilton and Leatherstocking in Cooperstown, on the surface, could not be more different. The former was the work of Robert Trent Jones, Senior, the iconic name from the midd to late 20th century. The latter is the work, spread out over ten years, of Devereux Emmet, a name that would be much more familiar to us if his timing had been better. With competition from the likes of Ross, Travis, MacDonald, Raynor, and Tillinghast, it’s no wonder that Emmet’s commissions did not match his talent.

What I expected were two completely distinct styles; what I discovered were a mutual respect for the use of land and a certain fairness of challenge. Jones loved water and loved to give the best golfers their greatest challenge. At Seven Oaks, his muse must have whispered “temperance” in his ear, as the course he designed avoids the intrusion of water on all but a handful of holes, with only one intimidating forced carry (the 10th). Normally not the most inspired of greens designers, Trent Jones catches you right from the start with his two-tiered first and diabolical second. If you escape the first two holes at Seven Oaks with four putts or fewer, you’ve passed the test.

Emmet, like many of his contemporaries, was handcuffed by the machinery of the day. No bulldozers yet existed, so the land was the land and Emmet worked with it, enhanced it, depended on it. His fairways at Leatherstocking at times look like frozen moments of ocean turbulence, rumpled and broken. The result is a variety of uneven lies, adding to the challenge of the approach. The course, at 6400 yards, will break no golfer’s back with distance, so the challenge lies in adapting to the ball’s position above and below the feet. Unlike Trent Jones, Emmet was a master of putting surface construction, evident from the first at Cooperstown. Your truest confession of hubris comes when you believe you can make the putt; when ego enters the equation, Emmet has you in his snare. Conservative putting and sound slope reading win the day on Emmet’s 18 greens at Leatherstocking.

Now that the NY Golf Trail bug has bitten me, I confess to a desire to trek north to the Adirondacks. Mountain golf is a world of its own, and the golf courses in Malone, Saranac, Bolton and Lake Placid will doubtless provide a different challenge from their flatland counterparts.

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