CSGA Publications: 2015 Connecticut Open Media Preview | Page 2

CONNECTICUT OPEN PREVIEW

81st Connecticut Open Preview

F

or just the second time in the history
of the championship, The Patterson
Club in Fairfield, Connecticut will host
the Connecticut Open on July 27th - 29th, 2015.
This year marks the eighty-first playing of the
Championship, which was first played in 1931 and
captured by Henry Ciuci at the Course at Yale.
The tournament is the only one of its kind on the
CSGA Championship calendar, as it welcomes both
amateurs and professionals from Connecticut to
compete against each other in a 54-hole stroke play
format.

The Patterson Club was first organized as a
Dining and Social Club, formally established by a
group of 20 charter members in 1929. The General
Electric Co. purchased Quasset Farm, the home of
Carlton H. Palmer and Winthrop Palmer, the first
female CT State Senator, on December 24, 1945 so
that the Club could be expanded to include facilities
for golf.

Under orders from The Patterson Club
Committee and by the direction of Robert Trent
Jones Sr. (the premier golf architect of his time),
Neil Martin, the first greens superintendent,
and the golf pro at Patterson built what he was
directed to do: a difficult course to score upon.
In its construction, workmen cleared 60 acres of
2 | CSGA Links // July, 2015

woodland and swamps, buried five miles of farm
stonewalls, and dug five artificial lakes, which dot
the layout. The present course was designed and
opened for play on June 28th, 1947.

The 2015 Connecticut Open will mark
the second time that The Patterson Club has
played host to this prestigious event. The club has
previously hosted the Connecticut Open in 1996,
the Connecticut Amateur in 1991 and 2004, and the
Connecticut Senior Amateur in 1989.

2014 Champion Frank Bensel of Fairfield, Conn.

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