Best golf courses near Stamford, CT

Gone are all the Norway Spruce that once squeezed every fairway of Winged Foot West. It’s now gloriously open and playable, at least until one reaches the putting surfaces, perhaps the finest set of green contours the versatile architect A.W. Tillinghast ever did, now restored to original parameters by architect Gil Hanse. The greens look like giant mushrooms, curled and slumped around the edges, proving that as a course architect, Tillinghast was not a fun guy. Winged Foot West was tamed, somewhat, by Bryson DeChambeau in winning the 2020 U.S. Open that was played in September, but he was the only competitor to finish under par in his six-shot victory.

Quaker Ridge returned to our list of America’s 100 Greatest Courses in 2013 thanks to major revisions by Gil Hanse that included removal of many trees and the rebuilding of bunkers; Hanse remains the consulting architect as the club is fine-tuning this A.W. Tillinghast design each year. This includes reclaiming putting surfaces back to Tillinghast dimensions, except on the sporty par-4 17th green, where a left-hand lobe that had been added by Frank Duane in 1964 was chopped off. Quaker’s strong suit has long been its powerful par-4s, such as the fourth hole with a collection of hazards needing to be navigated off the tee, the sixth, where tee shots must be squeezed between a creek and hillside and the drive-and-pitch 11th, where the green is girdled by a stream. Though Winged Foot's greens are widely considered some of the best in golf, don't sleep on the Tilly down the street.

Winged Foot’s two-course complex is the product of A.W. Tillinghast’s fertile imagination. Every characteristic of the more famous West Course also exists on the Winged Foot East (which, incredibly, was used as a parking lot during recent U.S. Opens). A decade ago, architect Gil Hanse re-established Tillinghast’s bunkering and reclaimed the original sizes and shapes of the greens, bringing “corner-pocket” hole locations back into play. Many members believe the East Course is just as strong a design—if not better—than the West.

When it was conceived in the early 1920s, The Creek was considered “The Million Dollar Club” because of the wealth of its exclusive membership. The line that writer Royal Cortissoz wrote upon its 1923 opening remains true today: “The distinctive character of this course lies in its range.” It opens with holes framed by trees, mainly lindens that line the entry drive, then moves onto a bluff that overlooks Long Island Sound. At the turn, holes play adjacent to the shore, offering fresh takes on two of C.B. Macdonald’s most exciting template holes. The 10th, a dogleg along the sea, is his version of the Leven (of Lundin Links in Scotland), while the 11th is not just a Biarritz green, but an island Biarritz green. Other Macdonald favorites are also at The Creek, including the Eden, Redan and Short.

C.B. Macdonald designed Piping Rock right after he completed National Golf Links, and just as he did there, Macdonald peppered Piping Rock with versions of his favorite design concepts, including a canted Redan green and a Road Hole based on the 17th at St. Andrews. But it was at Piping Rock, not National, where Macdonald first introduced what has become his most imitated hole, the Biarritz. It’s the ninth hole at Piping Rock, with a green 60 yards deep, bisected two-thirds of the way back by a six-foot-deep trench. Designer Bruce Hepner recently enhanced the course by removing trees, reinstating old cross bunkers, recapturing green sizes and adding tightly mown green surrounds to some holes. But he didn’t change the design. Piping Rock had great bones to begin with.

Well-known as a venue that hosted a PGA Tour event for decades, Westchester C.C. (West) was originally designed by Walter Travis, who was known for tiny greens and ferocious bunkering. The roster of architects who have tweaked Travis’ design includes Perry Maxwell in 1939, Rees Jones in 1982, Ken Dye (no relation to Pete Dye) in 2000 and, most recently, Tom Fazio. Fazio helped prepare a long-range master plan that, over a three-year period, was implemented by his longtime associate, and restoration specialist, Tom Marzolf, a former president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. It’s a shame this polished Westchester gem is no longer visited by the tour.

In a neighborhood of fabulous Golden Age designs, Metropolis Country Club might be overlooked—but its Herbert Strong design, remodeled in the late 1920s by A.W. Tillinghast and recently restored by Ron Forse—holds its own among Westchester County’s strongest hidden gems. Despite mostly tight playing corridors that dogleg left or right through trees, Metropolis features very large, interesting green complexes with multiple levels, humps, hollows, bowls, backboards and sideboards and a unique 25-yard shortcut of grass before each green that is slightly longer than green height. This allows the player to approach almost every green either low or high, using the ground to get the ball close to the hole. Fairways slope with a number of undulations on many holes, making them deceptively difficult to hold. Our panelists note that a driving range with tall netting squeezed between the 17th and 18th holes—which creates internal out of bounds on the penultimate hole—creates a bit of an eyesore at the end of the beautiful routing, but thus is the nature of jamming in a range for members on a piece of land that was never planned for practice.

Wykagyl is routed on one of the most dramatic pieces of land in Westchester County. The course rises up and down among rocky hills that deliver a number of momentous shots throughout the round. The course is incredibly deceptive off the tee as what appear to be generous landing areas are unveiled to be narrower than one may think, and holding the firm fairways proves to be difficult. Wykagyl's pedigree of designers is a who’s who of great American designers, from A.W. Tillinghast and Donald Ross, to Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. This leads to a great variety in the design as each architect laid his handiwork on the course.

Westchester County golf is full of hidden gems, but Sunningdale Country Club is often overlooked. It has a rich pedigree of architects with Walter Travis, A.W. Tillinghast and Seth Raynor working here. Meanwhile, Mike DeVries most recently completed renovation work. Like so many great Westchester courses, the rolling terrain creates an ideal setting for golf. Green complexes have character and extreme undulation in spots. The fairways aren’t so much rolling as they are rollicking, wild and random in a charming kind of way.

Westchester Country Club, located in Rye, N.Y., debuted in 1922, commissioning Walter Travis to design two 18-hole courses aptly titled West and South. The South course is the less difficult of the two and is set among gently sloping terrain where open fairways and tricky greens are dotted with exposed rock faces and often protected by fescue-lined ravines and penalty areas. Since 2000, the South course has undergone multiple renovations. The first was by Ken Dye, focused on adding more than 500 yards to the course. The second, by Tom Fazio in 2017, saw the removal of trees for more accessible driving areas, allowing for more creative shot selection into the dramatic and heavily green complexes.

Country Club of Fairfield has a topsy-turvy design history. Seth Raynor did the original design, but the clubhouse was never built where Raynor intended it, nor was an island par-4 shown on his original plan. In the mid-1920s, A.W. Tillinghast visited the course and sketched out a new fourth through sixth holes around a lagoon, which were subsequently built. Robert Trent Jones was hired in 1960 to install a practice range. To accommodate it, Trent sacrificed the old par-4 18th. He also rearranged several other holes, all of which were built under the supervision of Trent’s friend, architect Geoffrey Cornish. Cornish made further alterations in the 1980s. In the early 2000s, Tom Doak was hired to re-establish Raynor greens and bunkering style, turning most of the work over to his restoration expert, Bruce Hepner. Now on his own, Hepner is the club’s current consulting architect, and he has done a noble job instilling the Raynor look and feel to a routing that’s hardly Raynor anymore.

Situated within a mecca of great golf courses, Tamarack Country Club stands out as one of the finest. Built by Charles Banks in 1929, the course includes many template holes that were the trademark of Banks’ mentors, Seth Raynor and C.B. Macdonald, and a few great original holes on the back nine. The course is memorable for its massive scale throughout the property, often allowing players to recover from wayward misses. Though Tamarack delivers options where you can hit it, the brawny course makes it difficult to score if you’re not in the correct spots. A historical restoration by Brian Schneider, completed in 2023, focused on continued tree removal, reestablishing old fairway parameters, tying the green entrances into the approaches and returning the bunkering shapes and schemes to what was first developed by Banks but later modified through the decades.

Nassau Country Club was founded in 1896 and has since been expanded and renovated by a host of famous designers, initially by Seth Raynor in 1913, then by Herbert Strong in 1923, Rees Jones in 1981 and Tom Fazio in 2012 and 2021. The most recent renovations saw the addition of almost 700 yards to the course as well as the removal and strategic replacement of many of the course's bunkers. Regarded as the origin of the famed Nassau betting game, the course features tight sloping fairways with small greens known to be incredibly firm and ticklish. The standout hole is 15th—one of only two par 5s—played to a heavily bunkered fairway and well-guarded green.

Found on an incredibly undulating and varied piece of land, Whippoorwill Club is one of the finest courses in Westchester County. Originally a nine-hole Donald Ross design that sat on the clubhouse side of Whippoorwill Road, Charles Banks was given a piece of land on the other side where holes 4-9 and 12-14 currently reside. The modern course is chock full of interesting design features—from deep bunkers to green complexes that rival many of the other great courses in the area.

A mainstay of Connecticut golf since the 1960s, Stanwich has undergone modifications over several years by Tom Fazio and his team, all based on the club's master plan that addresses the course’s tees, bunkers, greens and mowing lines. The latest project was the rebuilding of five green complexes and the creation of a completely new first hole. “The first hole saw a complete re-imagining,” explained Fazio design associate Tom 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. Earthwork to cut the inside corner and open up views to the green have completely changed the feel of the tee shot.” More changes to Stanwich, both big and small, are still to come, but what won't change is the demanding nature of the architecture that requires strong, precise driving and unerring approaches into elevated greens that are heavily defended in front.

Steeped in history dating back to 1898 and two other previous sites, Century Country Club is another great course in a crowded neighborhood of Westchester Country Club (with five other great private clubs in Purchase, N.Y. alone). Walter Travis consulted the club to acquire its current 175 acres, moving from nearby Greenburgh, N.Y., which was sold to Metropolis Country Club. Harry Colt and C.H. Alison were hired to design the new course. Century is a co-host of U.S. Open sectional qualifying along with neighboring Old Oaks on alternate years with New Jersey's Canoe Brook Country Club.