Course Comparisons / Connecticut
Brooklawn Country Club vs. The Patterson Club: The Fairfield Choice
Fairfield, Connecticut has two private clubs, two famous architects, and one clean question. Tillinghast or Jones? Brooklawn is A.W. Tillinghast's work, opened in 1930, a USGA championship venue across five decades. The Patterson Club is Robert Trent Jones Sr., opened for play in 1947, a club born as a General Electric social institution that grew into one of Connecticut's best in state courses. Both are private, both are in the same town, both appear on Golf Digest Best in State lists. A Fairfield golfer choosing a club, or a guest choosing between two invitations, has to split them on the golf.
Brooklawn: the championship record
Brooklawn's case is its calendar. Founded in 1895 and admitted to the USGA on January 22, 1896, the club hosted the 1974 U.S. Junior Amateur, won by David Nevatt, the 1979 U.S. Women's Open, the 1987 U.S. Senior Open, the 2003 U.S. Girls' Junior, won by Sukjin-Lee Wuesthoff, and the 2021 U.S. Senior Women's Open. It plays par 71 at 6,711 yards, 73.3 rating, 138 slope. Gene Sarazen was an assistant professional here and still holds the course record of 63. Ron Forse, a Tillinghast specialist, directs the restoration work, so the course a championship field meets today is being kept deliberately close to what Tillinghast built.
That is a hard record to argue with. Five USGA championships, across every category of the game, on under 6,800 yards, means the design's defenses are the durable kind: angles, greens, and questions that equipment cannot obsolete.
The Patterson Club: Jones in Fairfield
Patterson's history is stranger and, in its way, just as good. It originated in 1929 as a dining and social club for General Electric employees, and GE bought Quasset Farm in 1945 for the golf expansion. The Robert Trent Jones Sr. course opened for play on June 28, 1947, with Bobby Jones and Gene Sarazen in the first official foursome. Think about that foursome for a company employees' club. Patterson has hosted the Connecticut Open in 1996 and 2015 and the Connecticut Amateur in 1991 and 2004, and it plays par 71 at 6,790 yards, a near exact yardage match for its neighbor.
The news at Patterson is current. Jaeger Kovich began a transformative renovation and master plan in 2025, which means the Jones course is being rethought for the modern game right now. A renovation of that stated ambition can move this comparison in a few years, in either direction, and honest coverage should say so.
The verdict
Brooklawn wins this one on the evidence available today. The Tillinghast design, the five USGA championships, Sarazen's unbroken 63, and a restoration program aimed at preservation rather than reinvention make it the stronger and surer course, the anchor of the best golf courses in Fairfield and a fixture of the 5 best golf courses in Connecticut.
Concede Patterson its real strengths. Its Jones pedigree is genuine, its state championship record is substantial, its founding story is the better dinner story of the two, and if the Kovich work lands as promised, the gap closes or flips. A member choosing in 2026 is choosing between a proven Tillinghast and a Jones mid transformation, and some golfers will take the transformation, the bigger canvas, the club on the move.
For a guest with one invitation to accept: Brooklawn, for the championship bones. For a golfer joining for the next twenty years, Patterson's bet on itself is the live argument in Fairfield golf right now.