Green Lakes State Park Golf Course

Overview: Green Lakes State Park Golf Course is an early Robert Trent Jones design set among the rolling terrain and glacial lakes of Fayetteville, east of Syracuse. The current state parks scorecard lists the championship setup at par 71 and 6,212 yards. Deep-faced bunkers, uneven lies and fairways that move through woodland make position important from the first tee. The golf is closely tied to the park around it: Green and Round Lakes provide the visual setting, while the surrounding trails and mature landscape give the round a strong sense of place rather than a purely suburban feel.

History: New York State Parks describes the course as one of the first golf designs by Robert Trent Jones. A New York Senate resolution records that Jones designed it in 1935 and that the course was unveiled on May 28, 1936. That early date places Green Lakes in the formative period of Jones’s career, when strategic bunkering and the use of natural contours were becoming central parts of his work. It remains a public state-park course, with the Robert Trent Jones clubhouse and the broader recreational landscape continuing the original connection between golf and the park.

Did You Know? The course sits beside two meromictic glacial lakes, Green Lake and Round Lake. One of them is recognized as a National Natural Landmark, so a round here takes place within a landscape that is significant beyond the fairways.