AFTON – In past years when we reviewed golf courses, the likelihood of a favorable review increased if our scores decreased.

It's been nine years since Bob McNitt and I last embarked on our summer tour of Southern Tier golf courses. Bob's passing in October of 2011 was a tremendous loss to the outdoors community as well as the hundreds of friends he made during his busy life.

Bob and I took a break from our summer series as the selection of courses within an hour's radius of Norwich started to wane. Nearly a decade later, I was encouraged to revisit the column, and also revisit an old favorite, Afton Golf Club.

Before trekking to any golf course, I needed a new partner - in crime - to ride shotgun on our weekly outing. Since we're getting a late start, this series will be abbreviated this year, but good friend Mike McCormack – who works across the parking lot from The Evening Sun office in the Pennysaver building – agreed to step in.

I wrote Mike about three weeks before I returned to Norwich and pitched the idea of reviewing area courses. Without hesitation, Mike was in. And why not?

For those who love golf, one cannot wait until the next trip to the links.

My first experience playing Afton Golf Club was in the mid-1980s when Norwich faced Afton in spring high school golf matches. In adulthood, I made infrequent trips to the course, but I was familiar with the layout. The course was not especially challenging, but I never seemed to play especially well.

Utilizing Bob’s Realtree camouflage bag, one his wife Betty gave to me last year, I hoped my fortunes would change at Afton.

In 1985, the Dawson family relocated from southern Florida and purchased Afton Golf Club, said Dave Dawson, who co-owns the course with his brother Guy. While the layout of the course has remained mostly unchanged the past three decades, numerous improvements were made, Dave Dawson said.

"We’ve installed 30 new tees and planted 500 trees," he said. While the fairways are wide and forgiving for the most erratic golfers, those trees are growing up.

“We wanted to tree-line our fairways like En Joie (in Endicott),” Guy Dawson said. “The trees will be there long after we’re gone.”

With ample water around the course, the Dawsons took a big step in the long-term maintenance and aesthetics of the course when they spent $400,000 on a course-wide irrigation system. Even in drought-like weather, Afton maintains much of the green that is a staple of upstate New York.

"We put the irrigation system in about 16 years ago, and that has really helped the playability," Guy Dawson said. "But there are high spots and mounds, and they brown out no matter how much water we put on them."