The Country Club of Ithaca

Overview: The Country Club of Ithaca is a private parkland course in Cayuga Heights, overlooking the rolling landscape around Ithaca. Current course references list 18 holes, par 72 and about 6,595 yards from the back tees. The property uses elevation changes, tree-lined fairways and water in a classic Finger Lakes setting, with approach shots often shaped by the changing ground rather than by length alone. Its location beside Cornell’s golf course makes it part of Ithaca’s unusually concentrated golf district.

History: The club was founded in 1900 with a small course and clubhouse, then moved several times as Ithaca developed. Historical course material records an 18-hole layout in the 1920s, followed by the present Pleasant Grove Road property in the late 1950s. Geoffrey Cornish is credited with the current course, while a municipal planning document records earlier iterations involving A.W. Tillinghast and Robert Trent Jones Sr. That layered history explains why the club’s founding date and the current course date are not the same.

Did You Know? Before Cornell had its own course, the university’s golf team played matches at the Country Club of Ithaca. The club therefore forms part of the playing history behind Cornell golf, not just the landscape beside the later campus course.