Cliff Park Inn

Pike County sits at the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania, where the Delaware River carves the state line and the Pocono Mountains give way to the Delaware Water Gap — one of the eastern seaboard's most dramatic natural corridors. Milford itself is a small Victorian river town with genuine architectural character, long a retreat for New Yorkers and Philadelphians seeking cooler summers and real countryside. Golf has been part of that tradition here for well over a century, with inn-based courses serving the resort trade that defined the Poconos long before the region became synonymous with ski weekends.

Cliff Park Inn carries the unmistakable profile of a classic American resort course from the early 20th century — the kind of layout built to complement a stay at a country inn rather than to test a scratch player's limits. Courses like this tend to be short, scenic, and forgiving, shaped by the land as much as by any architect's blueprint, with elevation changes and natural features doing most of the design work.

For visiting golfers, the appeal is less about grinding out a competitive score and more about the setting itself — playing through rolling Pocono terrain, surrounded by hardwood forest, within earshot of a region that wears its history lightly. It's a round best measured in atmosphere, not strokes.