In golfing vernacular, hitting it on the sweet spot means everything comes together perfectly in a golf swing: timing, tempo, rhythm, and balance. The feeling at contact is pure and unmistakable. In the highly proficient, this is often the result of a swing that is classic, graceful, and effortless. In the hospitality business, Lake Placid’s Mirror Lake Inn Resort and Spa most definitely hits it on the sweet spot.

Like a great golf swing, the Mirror Lake Inn is understated and effortless, classic and refined, and the results are equally sublime. To quantify that a bit, the Mirror Lake Inn has received the AAA Four Diamond Award the last 24 years consecutively.

Located on seven acres in the village of Lake Placid on the shores of Mirror Lake and within New York’s massive Adirondack Park, the inn has welcomed guests since 1924. With its burnished mahogany wood accents and understated elegance, the inn is evocative of a bygone era.

Owners since 1976, Ed and Lisa Weibrecht offer more than 100 rooms and 31 suites, many with fireplaces and Jacuzzi’s, and three restaurants including The View, Taste Bistro, and The Cottage. The View is the more formal dining area with a world-class wine list, The Taste Bistro is the bar offering more casual dining, and The Cottage at the lakefront provides variations on pub fare while offering an outdoor waterside deck, perfect for melting away the final hours of a sunny afternoon sipping your favorite cocktail. Additionally, a 5,000-square-foot spa offers all of the pampering one could ask for.

The golf offerings for the Mirror Lake Inn are also classics. The Whiteface Resort Golf and Country Club dates its inception back to the 1890s when Scotsman Willie Dunn laid out the original nine holes. In the 1930s John Van Kleek added the other nine with help from Walter Hagen who consulted. Built before the advent of bulldozers and other large earthmoving equipment, Whiteface is as good an example of the art of designing a golf course to existing terrain as you’ll find anywhere. The course is a delight to play and enhanced by great views of Lake Placid and Whiteface Mountain. The modest Adirondack-style clubhouse stays true to the ambiance of the course. If you look closely through the morning mist, you can almost see the dashing Walter Hagen, bedecked in his plus fours, exiting the Duesenberg convertible just before his tee time. While at Whiteface stop and chat with head pro Peter Martin, who has held the job for more than 30 years. Peter is a wealth of information and author of the book, “Adirondack Golf Courses: Past and Present.”

In addition to the Whiteface Resort Golf and Country Club, the inn has playing privileges at the nearby 54-hole Lake Placid Country Club, originally dating from 1895, and the Craig Wood Golf Course, which is town owned. Craig Wood (named after a Lake Placid native son who won the Masters and PGA Championship) is a muni in name only. Built in 1925, it is a stunning golf course with splendid Adirondack views.

The Mirror Lake Inn offers some very attractive packages that should suit the golfer and non-golfer alike. Additional activities include boating, canoeing/kayaking, fishing, and hiking in Adirondack Park. There are 46 separate peaks of 4,000 feet or more in the park. As a little added incentive, the local micro-brewery, Lake Placid Craft Brewery Co., honors those that have climbed them all with its 46’er Pale Ale.

Lake Placid hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1932 and 1980. Many of the venues from 1980 are still maintained, including the Mt. Van Hoevenberg luge and bobsled runs, the ski jumps, and of course, the Olympic Ice Hockey Rink, scene of the U.S. men’s hockey team’s Miracle on Ice where a rag-tag bunch of college kids upset the heavily favored Russian team to win the Gold Medal. For those who witnessed that event, or are familiar with it, just walking into the building will give you goose bumps.

A visit to Lake Placid and a stay at the Mirror Lake Inn has it all; like the perfect swing, here everything comes together perfectly.