LEATHERSTOCKING GOLF COURSE
Route 80/Lake Road
Cooperstown, NY
607.547.5275
www.otesaga.com/LGC/
Architect – Devereux Emmet
Par 35-37=72
Excitement Level – 10/12
Difficulty – 7/12
Design – 6 to 6-½ stars
Natural Setting – 6-½ stars
Conditioning – 5-½ stars
Cost – $95, $120 with cart, $10 off Hotel Guests, $40 replays, $70 twilight
Yearly Memberships – Yes, $1,500
Value – 6-1/2 stars
Overall – 6-½ stars
Tees Yards Rating Slope
Tips 6401 70.8 135
Regulation 6040 69.7 132
Front 5180 70.2 122
…its forests were alive with men; its shades and glens rang with…music, and the echoes of the mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry of many a gallant and reckless youth…
— James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans
In 1790 William and Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper moved to the rugged frontier of upstate New York with their then infant son James, one of the family’s thirteen children, (only seven would survive childhood). Little did they know their boy would eventually be revered as one of our country’s greatest novelists and the father of American frontier literature.
Cooperstown is actually named for William, not James. William’s wealth and position as a judge allowed him the privilege of establishing the settlement and having it bear his family name. A child born into status, James was educated by private tutors at Yale, where he enrolled in 1803, only to be expelled two years later after a prank went awry. (He set off an explosion that blew off a fellow student’s dormitory door.) Yet despite an inauspicious youth, the son’s fame soon eclipsed the father’s.
James’s headstrong nature and feistiness eventually sparked his desire to become a writer. If his family history is true, James threw down a book in disgust claiming he could produce a better effort himself. When his wife, Susan Augusta DeLancey, dared him to try – adding insult to injury by claiming he could barely write a simple letter – James began a career that spanned thirty-two novels, political tracts, and naval histories.
While the Cooperstown of James and Susan’s day has become a distant memory, the town and region remain pristine, refreshing, inspiring, and invigorating as when James was a boy. Where the leafy canopy of trees once hid spies and brigands who preyed upon the pioneers, now gracefully bending branches gently dapple the edge of the shimmering lake. Fed by a mountain spring deep under the Lake Otsego, “Glimmerglass” as it is called by the locals – now the restful retreat of outdoor enthusiasts from across the country – is a sapphire deep in the heart of an emerald, iridescent while reflecting either silvery moonlight or jubilant sunshine.
Moreover, where settlers once faced bitter winters, hunger and hardship, and death at nearly any step, now arias are sung and ballets performed at the Glimmerglass Opera House, the Otesaga Hotel stands in stately, refined charm at the water’s edge, baseball fans pay homage at the Baseball Hall of Fame, and golfers savor a Devereux Emmet designed masterpiece of a golf course, still carefully preserved to this day.
Okay, so The Otesaga Hotel is not Kiawah Island, Pinehurst Resort, or the American Club in Kohler, Wisconsin, and admittedly, Leatherstocking Golf Club is not National Golf Links of America, Yale Golf Club, or Pacific Dunes. Nevertheless, it’s much more cerebral that your average “sporty resort course” and, whether it’s a day trip or a week vacation, Cooperstown and Leatherstocking are an affordable, gorgeous, historic, and diverse vacation spot – big time resort golf and fun, but at small town prices, and with sincere, rustic charm and hospitality. A week here is far less expensive than a week at say Kiawah, The Greenbrier, or The Homestead, and the golf and setting are every bit the equal.
Formerly, Cooperstown Country Club and Otsego Links, Leatherstocking – which takes its name from the famous series of Cooper novels about the French and Indian War – sees a mix of local subscribers, hotel guests, and daily fee golfers. With The Otesaga being one of America’s most renowned resorts, and the Baseball Hall of Fame one of America’s most cherished landmarks, during the six month period in which the course is open, over 22,000 rounds will be played on a layout originally designed to see only 8,000.
A first nine were built by Emmet in 1909, (1-7, 16 and 18, although 16, 17, and 18 have all been changed anywhere from “a little” to “completely”), simultaneously with the Hotel. Emmet designed a second nine in 1919. Yet it wasn’t until many decades later when the course made a wise decision at a crucial moment that preserved the course’s character and soul. Needing to add some length and move some bunkers to negate the effects of modern equipment, the course underwent a restoration by Bob Cupp in 1997.
They wisely kept Cupp under tight rein. “Only restore: not redesign, not remodel, those were the instructions,” recalls PGA Head Professional Dan Spooner. “They did reface the bunkers to sod,” he continued, “and he enlarged tee boxes and added a few drainage areas, but he didn’t touch the greens.” The well-contoured, devilishly cunning putting surfaces remain faithfully close to Emmet’s originals. They also moved some hazards so that they would still be in play for modern equipment. The reasoning for minimal changes was rock solid: “it’s better that golf courses be natural, not manufactured,” said Spooner. “The land forms here are striking. All Emmet did was shape with pan plows, and he gave us a wonderful natural look. We’ve tried to stay true to the architect’s intent for many decades, so preservation was the order of the day.”
Emmet was a disciple of C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, the far-sighted architects who designed National Golf Links of America, so he routed the course to play into the teeth of most interesting terrain on the property, rather than avoid it or soften it. Moreover, like his mentors, the greens are the backbone of this cerebral, enduring design. Finally, Emmet was a wizard at designing par-5s, and his each of his quartet at Leatherstocking is fascinating.
The course has an asymmetric routing – 35-37 – 72 – with two par-3s on either side, but three par-5s on the back, just one on the front, so it reflects well the lay of the land. Typical of many classic layouts from that age, and consistent with many Emmet designs, the course does not return to the clubhouse at nine. Instead the course loops back t the fifth, then plays out to a distant point at the tenth green, before turning for home.
Most importantly, the greens take the course from merely pretty good, to truly great. There are plenty of pretty lakeside courses, and plenty of courses on good terrain for golf, but it’s what the architect does with that parcel that makes all the difference. Emmet’s greens are the sturdy backbone of the course, and the adventure merely begins upon reaching the putting surfaces. “These greens are fascinating,” said a genuinely impressed Dick Severson, who travelled from Northern Michigan to play here. “It reminds me of Lawsonia, my favorite course, he said longingly, “you have to be careful not to three or four putt.”
The first green is a perfect example. L-shaped, it falls away sharply at the front and to the right. Dick groaned painfully and pressed his putter to his head as his ball swerved away from the hole and ran liked a scorched cat off the green to a waiting swale.
It was my turn to suffer a similar fate on the long, uphill, 392/372 yard, par-4 second hole. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay uphill,” as golf writer Sal Johnson would say, and over a deep cross bunker, the hole finishes at a green typical of Emmet. Tilted severely one way, (this time left to right), the green’s cant recalls number 15 at fabled Garden City Golf Club, another venerable Emmet design. A fiercely penal, deep bunker well below green level guards the left side, so don’t be short left. If you are, pray to get down in three. The hole plays like a three-shot par-4, for most mortals. “372 yards never felt so long,” Severson noted, wiping sweat from his brow after he crested the hill.
Garden City influences appear again at the par-3, 201/193 third hole. A green severely sloped from back to front is guarded by shaggy mounds short and right. Half of the green is behind these grassy knolls, while the other half sits, warm and inviting, as a mere extension of the fairway. That’s a theme all day, by the way. If you work the ball, play a fade here. While many modern players would say, “this hole looks like something Pete Dye would have done, perhaps right of eighteen at Sawgrass” the mounds are more reminiscent of mounds at G.C.G.C.: for example, left of the green on 17.
Emmet excels at par-5s and, like at Garden City, the collection at Leatherstocking is bold, beautiful, dramatic and strategic. Just like the fourth hole at G.C.G.C., the fairway rolls first one way, then the other. This time, three bunkers bisect the fairway diagonally. The green has a false front (although nowhere near as bad as at the next hole), and a ridge runs from front right to back left, effectively making the green several smaller greens in one. In fact, the greens at four, five, and six are all topsy-turvy. The fifth green has a severe false front, shedding balls like American shorthairs shed fur, while the tiny sixth green is merely twenty paces back to front and fourteen paces across and is crowned.
The punchbowl green at the long par-4 seventh is player friendly, as balls tend to collect in the middle of the green. The stern defense comes from its merciless uphill climb, every bit as severe as the ascent up the second hole, just much longer, 404/391 yards. Its prodigious length runs from the tee box, over a deep cross-hazard, a rough-ringed bunker complex well below fairway level, then rises even more steeply uphill to a green similar in layout to the third, where the left side is a mere extension of the fairway, but the right guarded by a 20 foot deep grassy swale. Don’t be down there, particularly if you absolutely, positively need a par. That would be a highlight reel up-and-down.
In truth, the hole is a par four-and-a-half. If you don’t hit your drive on the bolts, the hole will play driver-three-wood-wedge. Nevertheless, thank goodness preservation is the order of the day because in this age, no one would build a hole like seven. They’d bulldoze the hill, which would be a scandalous tragedy.
Additionally, the hole is the region’s best example of an “Alps hole” – where the player carries a cavernous, well bunkered hillock before finishing at the punchbowl – which Emmet’s mentor, Charles Blair Macdonald exhibited so admirably a year later at National Golf Links of America. In fact, the template’s pedigree is even more venerable; the original is at legendary Prestwick, in Scotland.
It’s the hurly-burly rolls and contours of Leatherstocking G.C. – like those at two, four, and seven – that give it such charm and challenge. The same is true of eleven, another great par-5 which rumbles straight into the teeth of some of the most rugged terrain on the course, a wide runway sloping severely right to left.
The gorgeous, pint-sized, drop-shot par-3 at twelve is also reminiscent of another hole at National. The last hole of the “Road Loop” – holes 9 through 12, which are separated from the rest of the course by Route 80/Lake Street – is played to green encircled by sand, called a “short” in the vernacular.
The finish is a mix of strategy and resort eye candy. Playing along the eastern edge of the property, the par-5 fifteenth features a semi-blind approach to a sunken punchbowl green tucked behind a huge bunker. The parkland, target-style sixteenth and seventeenth holes feel mildly out of place with the rest of the course. They should; they are recent additions to the layout and are the only holes which Emmet did not design. Nevertheless, what they lack in strategy they makes up for in beauty. From the pulpit tee box at sixteen, water stretches all along the right side, before ending at the right side of the green, (once again, the left half is open, and a mere extension of the fairway). With a back drop of the hotel standing sentinel over the lake, it would be an arresting finisher on its own. We get another helping of eye candy at the seventeenth, a middle-length par-3 requiring a long carry over an inlet called Blackbird Bay.
After walking off the seventeenth green, players traverse a long wooden foot bridge into the lake to reach the teebox at the closer, a long runway of an island inside Lake Otsego. The last layer of this beautiful, intricate puzzle box of a golf course – with its cunningly clever problems to solve – is a Cape-style hole (in the modern sense of the word), which skirts the edge of the lake, another design concept culled from National.
Eighteen has both beauty and brains. After cutting off as much of the lake as you dare, the approach calls for a draw into the green, which extends into the water. A strip bunker behind the green recalls a feature of an Eden style hole – where the bunker around the rear of the green simulates the banks of the River Eden at St. Andrews’ twelfth hole. Not only is its stunning beauty a stirring finish, the Eden bunker guarding this precariously perched green recalls Garden City one last time, as G.C.G.C finishes with what Tom Doak called, “the greatest Eden hole in America.”
Leatherstocking is so much more than just a great golf course in a perfect setting. It’s a rare chance for public players to experience the work of one of the ancient masters, Devereux Emmet, who is more famous for private courses like Congressional and Garden City. Emmet’s sense of strategy blends seamlessly with his ability to rout a course: lay it out over, around and through the most interesting parts of the property. Every nuance of his sublime talent is on display at Leatherstocking. Long par-4s have bigger greens, short par-4s and par-5s have smaller greens. There are hardly any walks from tee to green. There are admirably stiff, yet charmingly antique cross hazards like 2, 4, 7, 10, 14and 15, again evoking the glorious strategic design of Garden City.
Moreover, the greens are textbook examples of the great shapes and contours of the great Golden Age layouts. “Our greens are particularly severe, often sloping left to right or left to right, not just back to front,” Spooner adds proudly. “We did have to take a little slope out of the second green. People kept putting off the front and it caused a back up. Where we once had 10% cupping area, we now have 75%, but we still retained the severe shape of the green contours so that has the same blend of character and difficulty it had before, we just keep play moving and give the golfer a fighting chance. You still have to be careful, so don’t think we took out its teeth or heart or soul.”
If there are any shortcomings, some players believe that nine and fourteen are the only uninspiring holes. “Nine green is too small for a long and steeply uphill hole, said Janice Powers, a player from Arizona who was vacationing in upstate New York for both the golf and the Baseball Hall of Fame Inductions. She’s right about the ninth green; it’s the size and shape of a Volkswagon beetle. Fourteen is too short, 285/254, and the old cross bunker can easily be carried by all but the most indifferent player.
Nevertheless, Powers brings up another great point. The Hall of Fame Tournament and week-long festivities are a prime attraction for baseball and golf lovers from across the country. The tournament is renowned for incredible magic. Philadelphia Phillies perennial all-star Mike Schmidt, a 2-handicap, shot a sizzling 64 in 1996. Another year, Johnny Bench, the sturdy backbone of the Big Red Machine – the Cincinnati Reds team that won back-to-back titles in 1975 and 1976 – hit a 364 yard drive, uphill all the way at the seventh, probably the longest drive and certainly the most storied on that hole. Look for the commemorative marker in the fairway.
“Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb had a match here too, so there’s lots of baseball nostalgia,” Spooner added. Still, while the Baseball Hall of Fame is here, its star does not overshadow either the pastoral purity of the region, nor the great golf history and legacy of Emmet. Thankfully there’s no campy MLB marketing, such as naming holes for teams or disposable modern steroids-marinated “stars,” although with Selig at the helm, I wouldn’t put it past him to try.
Just forty minutes away, an overpriced, under-designed chump-trap of a casino, charges $300 for a milquetoast boondoggle of a golf course on a completely fake benighted farm. For the price of one round there – where you pay them to assign you a locker that Eric Axley used! Rapture! – you can play for three days at an old-school gem that has welcomed everyone, from sports and political royalty to the homespun, charming people of the Mohawk Valley. Fake resort vs real resort? As actor Harvey Keitel would say, “That ain’t no choice at all!” The rack rate is $95, $120 with a cart. Otesaga Hotel guests get 10 dollars off. At twilight, it’s $70 to walk, and replays are only $40 anytime. Yearly subscribers get the best deal, $1,500 for the entire season.
It’s a great place to call your home course. Throughout the region, Old Glory flies at every streetlamp in the old rustic towns: towns that take pride in showing their love for America. Nearby, a tumbledown shack here, a forgotten silo there, and home spun ice cream stand kitty-corner recall the folksy Americana of the music of Reid Genauer – generations of families together, “sipping beer on aging porches with crooked walls built before their birth.” Endless summers begin every May, that is if they snow has melted by then. That’s when Glimmerglass – “a splendor from secret springs,” as Shelley would put it – becomes magically entrancing as it runs past the pines, bounds over the crags, delves into the caverns, and sails through the glittering vale, reflecting iridescent starlight and moonlight on fragrant summer eves.
