Quaker Ridge Golf Club
Played Quaker Ridge back in 2017 with my college buddy Dave and work friends Pete and Elliott. They got us on through their connection with the mini tour concierge which was a nice little access perk for a couple of years. QR is super exclusive. It flies under the radar somewhat but is a fixture on the golf magazines’ Top 100 lists and it belongs there IMO. The design provides a lot of variety between the holes, there are no omnipresent houses, it has a great golf history (visit their site for the video history which is nice), great conditioning, great clubhouse, and a certain awe factor. While they have hosted the Curtis Cup and the female version thereof, there’s no PGA or majors pedigree here which is probably why it goes largely unnoticed by the bucket list makers.
Obviously owing to its location across the street, a lot of people comp this to Winged Foot. They are both Tillinghast designs, they’re literally a stone’s throw from each other, conditioning is top notch with fast greens, and they both are old school classics with great old clubhouses. So yeah I guess I get the comp, but QR actually has the better topography though the majors history across the street pushes Winged Foot ahead in most rankings (including my own).
I think an interesting comp for Quaker Ridge is Bel Air in Bel Air. Both courses are great in their own right but are the ugly stepchildren to their well-known neighbors, Winged Foot for here and LACC and Riviera for Bel Air. Both are in super posh neighborhoods. Both boast the same well-known and highly respected architects as with their better known neighbors – Tillie and Thomas respectively. While the courses don’t look or play the same, they both are classics with a great variety of holes. Bel Air presents more elevation changes and uneven lies, though Quaker is no slouch in that respect. I’d give the conditioning edge to Quaker Ridge. Both are surrounded by houses (mansions actually) but even though both are tight little parcels of property, the houses don’t bug you (except on two at QR more on that in a second). My verdict on the comp is a tie. I know that’s a cop out and I do have Bel Air a notch higher on my ranking but that’s only because I don’t list courses as 1 and 1A and “B” is before “Q” in the dictionary.
Even though my buddy Dave is a single-digit handicap he didn’t tee shame us into playing the blues here and we played the whites which are a manageable 6,200+/- yards. Quaker Ridge only has two par fives and you get half of them out of the way on the first hole. One is a 500-yarder and here is a hole where the bogey golfer can compete with the scratch player. While most bogey golfers can’t get enough distance here off the tee to crest a slight hill, the big hitters have to face a nasty bunker on their approach while the fun-loving beer drinkers in the group can take a full swing without worrying about it. We then get to hit full wedge into the green where the scratch guys may have found themselves in the bunker which is big and nasty or also had to lay up and have the same shot. Advantage beer!
When you get to the second tee, you’ll find (or at least we did when we played there) a ranger at the tee. He will hand you a specially marked ball to use off the tee. He’ll do this because the douchebag off the second fairway sued the course because of the golf balls that were landing in his garden. Yo douchebag if you live on a golf course, you’re going to get golf balls in your yard. If you don’t like it, move. I live on a golf course. Golf balls land on my yard all of the time. None have hit the house, I don’t care if some guy retrieves his ball, and it’s rare that I have the annoying guy who will try and play from my yard (I bet it’s rarer that anyone at Quaker Ridge is sweating a lost $2 Pro V1 and doing the same from this guy’s yard). So, I get handed the ball and since I’m always one to do what I’m told, I slice my drive OB and into the guy’s garden. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.
The photo above is the par-three fifth and the only time that anything more than a creek comes into play. The course offers something very rare in a top 100 design, back-to-back par threes on nine and ten. The 11th is one of my favorite holes anywhere – a green protected on the front by a walled creek that wraps around the entire front half. I hit it behind the tree to the left here, punched out in front of the green, flipped my Lovett wedge onto the green (I’ll write more on the Lovett elsewhere) and a tapped in for par.
Overall the course is known for its variety and quality of its par fours. I thought they were great and the whole course was a great and pleasant golfing experience. I didn’t play particularly well but I didn’t feel beat up. If you’re staying in the area, I did a write up on Rye in my Winged Foot post. Take a look here for eats. Played there the same year but a different trip.
Golf Scrapbook 