Content area
Full text
On a good day at the D. Fairchild Wheeler Golf Course in Fairfield - actually two courses and 36 holes - 400 golfers will play 18. "They run the gamut, top executives to high school," said course operations manager Alex Head of the clientele. He has been there seven years.
The Wheeler Black Course dates to 1932 and the Red Course, a Works Progress Administration effort, was built in 1934. Both public courses are owned by the city of Bridgeport and take advantage of the glacier-scoured southern Connecticut landscape that contributes hugely to the sports regional appeal. Less blessed duffers can putter around Las Vegas and Miami and pretend to be part of golf's traditions; the sport's history and disposition are rooted in this region's dales and ridges of bluegrass and white oak and in its civic-minded ways.
"The courses were perhaps neglected in the 1990s, but now we're very excited about all the improvements," said Head....