County Rankings / Connecticut
The Best Golf Courses in Fairfield County, Connecticut
Fairfield County is the densest concentration of old money private golf in New England, 28 courses in our count, most of them private, several of them a century old, and almost all of them within a train ride of Manhattan. Ranking it is an exercise in sorting Raynor, Tillinghast, and Ross era lineage against a handful of public courses that serve everyone the private gates keep out. We score the golf first, so the privates lead, heavily. The public golfer should skip to No. 9, where his ranking actually starts.
1Country Club of Fairfield
Seth Raynor, 1921, holes touching Long Island Sound, ranked No. 3 in Connecticut by Golf Digest. Par 70 at just 6,358 yards, 71.6 rating and 133 slope, which is the Raynor argument in miniature: length was never the defense, the templates and the angles were. A.W. Tillinghast sketched new fourth through sixth holes around a lagoon in the mid 1920s, later built, so the county's best course carries both men's fingerprints. Tom Doak was hired in the early 2000s to re-establish Raynor greens and bunkering, with Bruce Hepner as consulting architect after. A Raynor on the Sound, restored by the right hands. Nothing else in the county touches it.
2Brooklawn Country Club
A.W. Tillinghast in Fairfield, par 71 at 6,711 yards, 73.3 rating and 138 slope. The championship record is the deepest in the county: the 1979 U.S. Women's Open, the 1987 U.S. Senior Open, the 2021 U.S. Senior Women's Open, the 1974 U.S. Junior Amateur, and the 2003 U.S. Girls' Junior. The club was founded in 1895 and admitted to the USGA on January 22, 1896, among its earliest members. Gene Sarazen was an assistant professional here and still holds the course record of 63. Ron Forse, a Tillinghast specialist, directs the ongoing restoration. Brooklawn loses to Fairfield only on setting and Raynor purity. On competitive history, it wins the county outright.
3Greenwich Country Club
A founding era Greenwich club with a layered design record: founded in 1892 with a member built nine, expanded to 18 in 1908 by Lawrence Van Etten, then a Seth Raynor redesign opened in 1916 that established the ridge to valley routing. Robert Trent Jones Sr. remodeled it in 1963, and Beau Welling completed an extensive overhaul of bunkering and green surrounds begun in 2018. Four eras of architecture on one Greenwich property, still coherent, still private, still the town's standard. Greenwich also carries The Patterson Club, Round Hill, Tamarack, and Fairview below, which is an absurd bench for one town.
4Connecticut Golf Club
Geoffrey Cornish in Easton, built on a solid rock site where Cornish blasted ledges and relocated streams to create elevated tees and dramatic doglegs. Par measurements tell the story at 6,899 yards and a 146 slope, the steepest number in this ranking. Lawrence A. Wien, a co-owner of the Empire State Building, built it as a private retreat for New York golfers, and Brian Silva lengthened holes and reworked bunkers and greens in 2002 while keeping the routing. The par 4 16th has a four tier green roughly 68 yards deep. Connecticut Golf Club is the county's bruiser, and the club has hosted multiple CSGA majors. Golfers who find Raynor too cerebral come here to get beaten up honestly.
5Country Club of Darien
Opened in 1957 as an Alfred Tull design, first nine in July 1957, then comprehensively rebuilt in a Michael Hurdzan redesign starting in 2007 that rebuilt tees, bunkers, and greens, rerouted holes, and dropped par from 72 to 71. It plays 6,912 yards and hosted its first Connecticut Open in 2021, plus the Ike Championship and the Westchester Open. The redesign earned Golf Inc. Renovation of the Year recognition in 2010. Darien is proof a 1950s club can buy its way back to relevance if it hires well and commits fully.
6Fairview Country Club
The county's most traveled club. Founded in 1904, its earlier course was an 18 hole Donald Ross design opened in 1912 in the Elmsford area of New York. Interstate 287 development forced a move, and the club relocated to Greenwich in 1968 behind a new Robert Trent Jones Sr. course. It hosted the 1930 Met Open and the 1959 Met Amateur at its old home, and Rees Jones led a bunker renovation begun in 2019 restoring his father's original style. A Ross past and a Jones present in one membership. The history alone earns this spot.
7Country Club of New Canaan
Willie Park Jr. lineage, a club established in 1893 and at its Smith Ridge Road site since 1895, among the oldest country clubs in the United States. Park's original course was nine holes, the expansion to 18 was not completed until the 1940s, and Walter Travis and Robert Trent Jones also left marks on the property. The signature hole is the par 4 sixth, about 430 yards with a stream across the fairway 300 yards out. It hosted the Connecticut Mid-Amateur for the first time in 2022 and plays par 70 at about 6,350 yards in championship setup. Quiet, old, and better than its profile.
8Aspetuck Valley Country Club
Hal C. Purdy in Weston, par 71 at 6,611 yards, 72.5 rating and 132 slope, the sleeper of this list. Lester George began a multi phase renovation in 2020, and phase one rebuilt holes 11 through 14, completed in July 2021. The rebuilt 13th is a short risk and reward par 4 of about 310 yards with an Alps style green, exactly the kind of hole a ranking should reward: a drivable par 4 with a template green, inserted into a Purdy routing by a careful renovation. The Stanwich Club, Wee Burn, Shorehaven, and Woodway all press Aspetuck for this spot on reputation, and on another panel one of them takes it. We take the Alps green and the renovation trajectory.
9Oak Hills Park Golf Course
The best public course in the county, and it is not a token pick. An Alfred Tull municipal in Norwalk from 1969, par 71 at 6,407 yards, named the 2025 best public golf course in Fairfield County by Connecticut Insider Magazine, ranked No. 8 in Connecticut in Golf Advisor's 2024 list, and operated since 1998 by the Oak Hills Park Authority entirely on golfer revenue without city tax money. In a county of gates, Oak Hills is the argument that public golf here still matters. Richter Park in Danbury and the Fairchild Wheeler pair in Bridgeport, 36 municipal holes, carry the rest of the public case, and E. Brennan in Stamford, a self funded muni that uses no taxpayer money, deserves its mention too.
The back of this county is not ordinary, it is just private and old and crowded out by the names above, which is a different problem entirely. The state context is in the 5 best golf courses in Connecticut. Fairfield County's closing image is the one its No. 1 course gives you for free: Raynor greens above Long Island Sound, the light going, a 6,358 yard course from 1921 still asking smarter questions than courses twice its budget.