Stanwich Club

According to the Stanwich Club, “The name chosen for the club had been part of the local lexicon for nearly 250 years”. We're not entirely sure what that means but wondered whether the name came from a blend of the two cities of Greenwich and Stamford, which are each situated about five miles away from the Stanwich Club? Jeff kindly contacted us and commented as follows: “The local lexicon is that there was a small farming hamlet near the club called Stanwich as it is on the border of the two larger towns of Stamford and Greenwich."

The father and son team of William and David Gordon designed the Stanwich Club and the course opened for play in 1964. The relatively flat course is routed across former farmland and reclaimed swampland. Mature trees line each fairway, water comes into play on half the holes and the greens slope from back to front inviting bold approach shots. Beware though, the putting surfaces are among the slickest in the Met Area and they’re tightly bunkered. It’s these excellent putting surfaces which attract tour professionals to the Stanwich Club when they are in the area.

Stanwich has no shortage of great holes but perhaps the pick of the bunch is the par three 13th which, from the tips, plays firstly over a creek and then a pond. The raised L-shaped green is ringed with bunkers and is wickedly undulating.

Host to the 2002 US Mid-Amateur Championship, Stanwich is not one of the better-known courses in the States, but George Zahringer will certainly have fond memories of the club. Not only was he a member of the Stanwich Club but also he became the oldest winner (aged 49) of the 2002 Mid-Amateur title. It must have been sheer delight to win that title at your home club.

Tom Marzolf from Fazio Design completed a renovation project here in April 2018. “The first hole saw a complete re-imagining,” explained Marzolf. “The old hole was a quick dogleg left that had many trees blocking the path around the corner. We looked to improve the options off the tee and allow alternate ways to play the hole... The hole features a new green shape with two separate fairway approaches around one small central bunker... Work to rebuild five green complexes on the course was done to update variety by adding low cut greenside collection areas."

“On the fourth hole – a par three with a pond nearby – the club elected to move a hole location to the water’s edge,” continued Marzolf. “Bringing the water into play was also a feature of the par four fifteenth green rebuild. Work on the eleventh green saw the removal of a front left greenside bunker, and the creation of shaved down bent grass in its place. On the fifth green, the shape was adjusted to elongate new hole locations which bend around a bent collection area on the back margin of the putting surface.”