The Patterson Club

Anyone who has ever driven through Connecticut has spent time crawling through traffic on I-95 or Route 15. If you’ve ever taken the latter, you’ve likely driven past one of the best-kept secrets in the Northeast. The Patterson Club sits just over five miles inland from the Long Island Sound and a stone’s throw away from Route 15, yet it feels like it’s a world away from civilization.

The Patterson Club was originally founded as a playground for General Electric executives and employees, since their headquarters were not far away in Bridgeport. They brought in the biggest architect of the era, Robert Trent Jones Sr., to build “a course difficult to score on.” As time wore on, much of the GE business left the area and the club was eventually sold to its membership. 

A lot has changed at the Patterson Club in the last 50 years, but its most dramatic change is also its most recent. Golf course architect Jaeger Kovich was hired to complete a dramatic overhaul of the club’s golf course, converting it from a mid-1900s design into a modern layout with nods to the Golden Age of golf course architecture. The modern-day course at the Patterson Club is a far cry from its original design and a promising sign of the club’s trajectory.

Take Note…

A unique setting. The vast majority of clubhouses in America occupy a property’s high ground, offering long views of their golf courses. The Patterson Club offers the opposite. Located on the south end of the course, you can see only the 18th green from the clubhouse and its patio. The rest is a mystery to be discovered.

Nod to history. The white barn near the tennis courts at the Patterson Club used to house horses before the land was sold in the mid-1940s. The previous owners trained horses on the grounds, and the barn remains as an homage to the past.

The Polish Pyramid. You will find an odd pile of rocks to the right of the second hole at the Patterson Club. One might think the formation would date back to Revolutionary times, but only the club’s Superintendent Jason Meersman knows the real story.