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The Golden Era of Golf in Connecticut

Golf first arrived in the American colonies in the 1600s, but it was not an immediately popular pursuit. While golf became one of the best-known past times in the United Kingdom in the late 1700s, it was not until the late 1800s that the sport gained a strong foothold in America. The Industrial Revolution changed American perceptions of labor and recreation; as people began to take jobs in mills and factories they began to see a clear division between work time and leisure time. Many Americans turned to sports to occupy their leisure time. This led to the rise of baseball, tennis, and ultimately golf as leisure-time athletic pursuits. As an advertisement for Brooklawn Country Club stated, golf was "fascinating alike to both sexes, to old and young, it furnishes a means of exercise of the most pleasing nature. It involves no sudden and violent exertion, but yet is invigorating and healthful."

Connecticut, with its proximity to major industrial hubs, became home to some of the nation's oldest golf courses. The state features thirteen golf courses that play on the same land as they did in the 1890s. The oldest of those courses, and one of the oldest courses in the country, is Greenwich Country Club, designed by Seth Raynor and opened for play in 1892. The state's second oldest course is Fenwick Golf Course. With the first holes dating to 1894, Fenwick is one of the oldest public golf courses in the United States. Connecticut has a second 19th century course that is open to the public in Roseland Golf Course, which opened as Woodstock Golf Course in 1896. Brooklawn Country Club, which consistently ranks as one of the best courses in the state, opened for play in 1896 as well.

Golf's popularity continued to grow in the 1900s, with the wealth of the roaring twenties leading to an explosion in golf course construction. Some of the state's greatest courses, including The Course at Yale, Country Club of Fairfield, Tamarack Country Club, and Round Hill Club were constructed in the 1920s. By the mid-1930s, steel-shafted golf clubs were replacing hickories and changing the game of golf. But golf was well-established in Connecticut by that time, and many of its earliest courses are still open for play today.