Located less than two hours from the Canadian border, Timber Banks is quickly establishing itself as an outstanding golf community.
And it’s also about to turn itself into a “gotta-play” golf course.
In Upper New York State, just outside of Syracuse, in Baldwinsville, Timber Banks has 18 holes open. It’s an impressive debut for the Jack Nicklaus-designed course, which opened nine holes last year and has unveiled nine more this year. The course was fully up and running in early April, with spectacular conditions.
A planned unit development community with resort style apartments, villas, cottages, single family and estate homes, Timber Banks should quickly stand front and centre in an area with some great golf courses.
“A lot of people like to go to Turning Stone because they like the quality, but sometimes they’re not that keen on the price,” says Timber Banks GM Perry Noun III. “We will rival those courses. And you can play here for $50-$65 with a cart for 18 holes.”
The result of plenty of planning and lots of hard work, Timber Banks, which winds through ancient forests and emerging neighbourhoods, is impressive.
“The front nine is more of a parkland type, cut out of the trees” says Noun III. “The back nine has more of a links look to it. The two nines play off each other very nicely. You can still tell you’re on the same course, Nicklaus is Nicklaus. So you’re going to get your intimidating bunkers and optical illusions.”
Timber Banks has four sets for tees, playing at more than 7,300 yards from the tips (where the slope is 144, with a 76.4 rating).
“We strongly believe we’ll be in Golf Digest’s Top 10 new courses in the country,” says Noun III. “It’s exciting to bring a semi-private facility like this to the Syracuse area, a course at the private country club level.
“It was almost a relief (when we opened); one feeling was let’s get the people in here. But being involved in this since the infancy stages, we were also thinking about all the people that had been involved in the course along the way, people who weren’t there to see the finished product. This is just unbelievable.”
There’s plenty more to do than golf in Syracuse. College football and basketball are huge (and with a major university in town, the downtown is active). The shopping is great with Carousel and Great Northern Malls within twenty minutes and the premium outlets within an hour. And there’s Triple-A baseball and the American Hockey League’s Syracuse Crunch.
“We get folks from Montreal and Toronto, but it’s mostly from the Ottawa area,” says Noun III. “If 16 guys want to play 36 holes a day, we can do that. If you have your family in town where some of them want to shop while the rest golf, we’ve got that, too.
“Syracuse is becoming a destination city.”
There are plenty of memorable holes, but Noun says No. 16 is probably the
signature hole.
“It’s 223 yards from the tips, on the Seneca River” he says. “It’s really unbelievable. You can see the marina, the future site of the clubhouse, the river, one of the biggest bunkers on the course and one of the largest greens. It’s a perfect picture.”
There are also 25 acres of practice area.  Customized golf instruction is based on the physical limitations of the golfers, trying to keep them motivated and committed.
Timber Banks has a push on golf packages. Under a new initiative, with eight local courses involved, golfers are being encouraged to book a package deal. It certainly cuts down on the hassle.
“The only bill you see is when you check out of the hotel,” says Noun III.
If you want to book a package, contact Noun III at 315-635-8800.
“I’ll ask the probing questions,” he says. “Like do you want to be close to shopping, do you want to be close to the course or do you want to be close to downtown. I’ll call the hotel GM and make the arrangements. We’ve pre-negotiated everything. This is in its infancy stages, but it was a no-brainer for us to get involved. We think we’ll get a lot of traffic.”

Check out www.timberbanks.com for more details.

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