Quarry Ridge Golf Course

Narrow Fairways, Large Elevations

How can a 6,300-yard course seem to play much longer? Difficulty. Much that energizes Quarry Ridge comes from its quarry landscape. These include the rock outcroppings scattered around nearly all of the holes on these eighteen. A close encounter with them most often ends badly. Yet there are, surprisingly, relatively few bunkers here. The few water hazards do give me pause, but they’re not menacing.

Still, architect Al Zikorus roughened up his style at QR with more than a handful of narrow back-nine fairways. Does a 20-yard-wide fairway intimidate you? It does me. Thankfully, Zikorus used sideslopes in clever ways to lessen the "effective" width of a couple of such fairways at eleven and twelve, but the training wheels come off at 13, 15, and 17. There, your ball is far more at the mercy of whatever side or downslope it happens to land on—or the trees and whatever lies in the rough. Zikorus also incorporated his trademark fast and tilted greens. But his ace in the hole turns out to be the big—sometimes even huge—elevation changes at Quarry Ridge, and they become constant as you progress through the eighteen.

The back nine is toughened further by two best par threes on the course. Not the longest, but the most fraught with trouble and the hardest to club. The front is hardly a slouch, though, even though the first couple of holes seem the tamest. By the time you’ve reached six, though, you’re on a hole-to-hole rollercoaster of thrills, where most par-4s feature downhill tee shots that lend impressive views from the tees.

Any overview of this course should touch on a subtle driving test that serious players can appreciate. It’s not all about tight holes on the front nine, which offers a counterpoint to the tighter back. Two good examples are the tee shot at three, favoring a draw that will carve its way onto a smoothly curving fairway with trouble both left and right, and the even better rightward-curving fifth, which is well-suited to those who fade the ball into the blind fairway.

Although I would not call this a strong second-shot course, there are touches of brilliance at some of the short holes like seven, eight, ten, and fifteen. Of these, only ten plays downhill into the green, making your wedge or short iron difficult to stop. The other three greens, set upon small rises or hills, are hard to gauge for distance.

Notes from today:

–-Course conditions were improved from my last visit, if mostly on the tees. The roughs seemed better but still had a few areas of patchiness on many holes. Greens were slower (from thatchiness) than normal, yet the ball rolled smoothly. Bunkers were okay but could use a bit more attention: the left front trap at three was surprisingly untended.

–-The staff pays outstanding attention to floral plantings, especially near and around the clubhouse.

—The clubhouse restaurant is elegantly decorated.

The ciurse layout is challenging if you don't hit the fairways. Course conditions were average and appears to need more attention.

played early in April, cool and windy weather, course in good shape as usual. greens small and challenging with nary a flat roll. I was almost the only one out there because of the weather(high 40s, sunny but windy). tee boxes decent, fairways decent.

played on a cold weekday - high 40s, breezy but partly sunny, hardly anyone else playing. course in good condition.

I would’ve given a perfect 5 star rating but the tee boxes were all in really rough and ugly shape. Some of the fairways and areas surround the green were pretty bad too. Would miss a green and then be on some hard as stone ground not too far off the green where the rough is.

All in all though I recommend still, pace of play could’ve been better but it was just a really busy day and that kind of happens. Proshop staff were great!

Tee boxes, burnt out, fairways burnt out, rough burnt out