The Golf Courses of Dutchess County

New York's Dutchess County has been blessed with an abundance of golf courses, private and public, from the time golf was introduced in the United States to the present day. From John Dutcher's 3-hole course in Pawling in 1885 to the Silo Ridge Field Club's course in Amenia which opened in 2016, there have been 34 golf courses in the county. 20 of them remain in existence today. The existing courses span from Tivoli in the north to Beacon and Fishkill in the south. Six of them are Private, four are Semi-Private, seven are Public and three are Municipal. There are nine each of 9-hole and 18-hole courses, and two others at 27 holes and 12 holes, respectively. Three of the lost courses were on private estates; two others were on the property of what are now abandoned psychiatric hospitals; another was part of a full-scale resort. This book focuses on the origin and development of the courses and, for the lost courses, the reasons for their demise. The book is liberally illustrated with early and current photographs.