Quaker Ridge

The entire staff of Unplayable Lies was given the morning off and treated by their benevolent supervisor to a morning of golf at historic Quaker Ridge Golf Club.  From the club's website:

It was late October of 1776, in the early stages of the Revolutionary War. Sir William Howe, Commander-in-Chief of the British armies, marched his troops up Weaver Street on his way to White Plains. Howe and his troops camped for the night on land owned by Quakers, resting for battle the next day. 

As lore has it, a mile and a half away, through the woods, George Washington slumbered (near his beleaguered Continental troops) under a great oak – the same oak that grows to the right of Quaker Ridge's 10th hole.

About the only disappointment for me is that the club had to take the oak down recently.  Not that the property isn't covered with wonderful specimen trees still, it's just that connections to the Revolutionary War are few and far between.

Play on the 4th, like many at QRGC, id defined by a large tree on the left side of the fairway.

For those of you keeping score, Howe beat Washington 3&2, however since he failed to press he missed  a great opportunity to quash the nascent revolution, and had he they'd be serving tea and scones in the clubhouse.

Golf on this property dates back to 1915 when a rudimentary 9-hole track was constructed.  That club was plagued by financial woes, and in 1916 the Quaker Ridge Golf Club was formed and purchased the land.  The club hired Albert Warren Tillinghast to redesign seven of the existing holes and design eleven new ones.  In 1925 the club acquired a parcel of land abutting the north end of the property, and Tillie was brought back to incorporate this land into his routing.  

To help the reader appreciate the steep pitch of the slope to the left of the 4th green, Theresa couldn't take a stance that would allow her to play directly at the pin.

While the Jones boys (Dad and Rees) have been hired to push back tees and add bunkering, the routing and golf course remains essentially as Tillie conceived and built.  The old joke about Tillie is that he only did his best work when he was on the bottle, so he must have been plastered quite regularly while in Scarsdale, for which we can all lift a glass.

The beautiful seventh is a classic Tillie "pop-up" green.

Quaker Ridge is less known than its famous neighbor Winged Foot, for the simple reason that it's property is quite small and it's unable to host major golf events.  The USGA deserves credit for bringing a Walker Cup here in 1997, though at barely 7,000 yards on the card and with the second hole playing only 280 yards due to a litigious neighbor, even that would be difficult to repeat.

To give a sense of how tight the property is, we hit balls on what seemed to be a narrow but fully adequate grass driving range., though I was a bit surprised at the size of the bunkers we hit towards.  Several hours later we realized that we had actually hit our range balls down the seventeenth fairway, which was only available until the first group made it that far onto the golf course.  Obviously not an issue on a late Fall Friday, but on a Sunday in July I'm sure it's carefully calibrated.

I purchased this outing as part of our club's charity day, although the QRGC member, Ron Vinder, was supposed to play with us.  Unfortunately Ron had an injury and is unable to play, so we played as a three-ball, the lovely Employee No. 2, golf buddy and friend Colin King and your humble correspondent.  The routing is somewhat similar to that at Muirfield and a few other links, with the first eight holes comprising a counter-clockwise loop around the edge of the property.  That would be a difficult start for a slicer of the ball, as pretty much the entire right side of those eight holes features white stakes.

But all the markers of Tillies best work are to be found, the pop-up green complexes, the intimidating bunkers far below the level of the greens and the perfectly framed playing corridors.  The Par-3's are quite spectacular, and Colin and I amused and/or tormented ourselves by playing those from the tips.  I hit 3 of the four greens, which is pretty damn good ball-striking as three of the four involved the removal of a headcover.  

Colin and I got off to quite the exciting start at the three-shot first.  I hit a clanky gap wedge that ended up inches from the cup for a kick-in birdie.  Not one to allow me a moment in the spotlight, Colin proceeded to pitch his fourth from short of the green, landing it just past pin high.  The ball rolled to the top of the crest, then started inching back towards the hole before dropping from sight.  It's a simple game, except of course when it isn't...

The writer tees off on the Par-3 13th.  Immediately after, we hit our drives on the Par-r 14th, visible to my left where the vehicle is parked.  Then after putting out, we simply cut across to the 14th fairway.  It's good to be with locals...

The greens were absolutely perfect and quite quick.  I was a bit of a victim of good iron and short-game play, as we were well into the round before I had a putt of sufficient length to actually release the putter head.  Or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it...  I got way too tentative and left some holeable putts short, though I only had one three-jack.  But it was even more of an issue chipping and pitching, where shots seemingly hit with perfect weight would run out ten to fifteen feet past the cup.

 The greens are undoubtedly not as severe as it's neighbor Winged Foot, though I think for member play that's a good thing.  The bunkering is probably not quite as deep as well, but to me the ground is a bit more interesting, and Tillie used its gentle contours to great effect.  Each green complex seems unique in its tests, but also to sit perfectly in its environs,   Like many clubs they've removed many trees, though it remains a great test of control with the driver.

Not surprisingly, the caddies were excellent, as is to be expected at a club of this quality.  That is until Siad conned me into trying to punch a nine-iron through an opening in large tree that protects the short Par-4 11th.  Now some players might take responsibility for hitting their drive further left than instructed, but the loyal reader will know by now that I'm not one of those guys.  It didn't go well, though I did get up-and-down for bogey so the penalty was minor.  

Not much of an opening there, Siad, though admittedly a golf ball would fit through.

The 18th green sits picturesquely nestled in front of the clubhouse.

The bride with James (l) and Siad.

The most famous comment about Quaker was by Jack Nicklaus, again from the club's website:

The golf course continues to stand the test of time. During the 1974 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Jack Nicklaus, was asked whether he thought that Winged Foot was the greatest course in the world. Nicklaus replied: "That may be, but there is quite a golf course down the street."

Yes Jack, there sure enough is.