I have played it a couple of times before but they were in events of sorts so scrambles, or even best balls but very casual rounds. Today it was empty and beautiful summer day. Actually a friend had said he wanted to play it so I arrange it for him but it ended up a great treat for me.
It was struck by how much longer it seemed to play than the 6700 yards, with many uphill or elevated greens. Course has a great variety of holes, some wooded, some open, elevated tees, small greens with slopes. Need to position the ball in the right part of the greens to two putt. I struggled with that a bit. Generally a fair course but tough and a real joy to play and enjoy.
It's near Schenectady NY and at one time when that was the home town for GE it must have been quite the happening club. As GE pulled put and Schenectady fell on hard time I think the club has struggled a bit membership wise. Not sure how they are doing today but everything was in great shape.
While all course evaluations are highly subjective, this one scored really high on my criteria which is if I lived nearby would I want to bbe a member. It's about 30 minutes from my home at low traffic times, so I could but for me to get any real use out of it it's just too far. I pass by 4 private clubs to get there. I don't think any of the other four are as nice of courses but 10 minutes makes it a lot easier to use the place to play a few holes, practice or socialize.
I posted this not only because I really enjoyed it and wanted to hear anyone else's opinions but more because of the discussion we had abut Leatherstocking in Cooperstown NY and how it wasn't ranked high enough in some people's views. I had said in my opinion Leatherstocking was no better than a handful of relatively unknown upstate NY courses which I would include Mohawk on that list. I have decided to go out and play Leatherstocking again as maybe I just didn't appreciate it enough and am going by memory as it's been a few years, also my proficiency in golf has greatly improved in that time so I think that allows greater insight.
In the end there are tons of courses that might show up on a list if they were in more tony locals or had a better history or more populous locations as the metro NY area.
Dan