Crystal Springs Golf Course

Crystal Springs Golf Course is a family-owned nine-hole course in Vernon, New York, built on former farmland. It was founded by Fred Snizek, who left a job at General Electric in Utica to pursue the goal of owning a course, and developed it with his wife Janet and their five sons.

Leadership passed to their son John in the 1990s, who created the "Golfing for Breast Cancer" charity in honor of his mother, a two-time breast cancer survivor; over ten years it raised more than $100,000 for the Faxton-St. Luke's Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center. Following John's death in 2010, the course came into the care of the youngest son, Tom, an English teacher and golf coach at New Hartford High School, who has established the Crystal Springs Foundation to award scholarships to high school seniors.