JENNINGS'S CLUB (1921)

Speranza

The Country Club of Fairfield was founded in 1914 by Oliver Gould Jennings.

The club is located on a parcel of land which originally consisted of a collection of the famous Fairfield onion fields that sloped down to a typical New England salt marsh.

Jennings hired Seth Raynor to design the club.

A protégé of Charles Blair Macdonald,, Raynor crafted a layout that featured versions of many of the best golf holes.

It was an enormous land fill project that took quite a few years to complete, and the club did not officially open until 1921.

Walter Hagen was among those in attendance that first day.

The Fairfield Country Club is Raynor’s first solo efforts.

Raynor went on to design a number of top clubs including Shoreacres outside Chicago, Mountain Lake in Florida and Fishers Island off the Connecticut coast.

But Raynor was not the only architect of note to work on the Fairfield Country Club, as A.W. Tillinghast and Robert Trent Jones Sr. also added their touches over the years.

The result is a layout that not only serves as a superb club but also as a challenging venue for tournaments such as the Met Open, the Connecticut Open and the Met PGA Championship.

It is rightfully regarded as one of the best in the country.