After waiting for 35 minutes for a frost delay, it was no more than 40 degrees when I teed off yesterday at The Quarry at 8:15 am. I believe that Brian Huntley designed The Quarry. I wonder how much earth had to be moved here? Although I have yet to play Longaberger, the #1 (subjectively anyway) ranked public in Ohio (I might on Sunday), The Quarry could just be one of the top courses in Ohio. It has a few drawbacks however. It is not designed as walkable course given the topography and the routing, I wouldn't expect it to be. I am sure that some sherpas would survive walking the course. It is however, GREAT CART golf. It was as aesthetically pleasing as you could hope for, especially with fall foliage. They left 3-4 old oil wells near a few greens which added to the theme here. I didn't see any steam shovels or bulldozers though. There is a power line that crosses a few holes, but it did not seem unpleasant here for some odd reason. The mismatched homes on the 17th and 18th holes kind of spoil the view and detract from the overall view one gets from playing here. Not quite a let down, but close enough to mention it. Although I don't know what they could have placed there; left the original trees maybe assuming they were there to begin with. There is one other location where I feel they could have hidden a street and some other houses, although they are not on any of the holes. I guess I just hate homes on golf courses. The customer service was awesome, the coffee was terrible and the round set me back $52 plus $2 for my mandatory logo ball.
I thought that The Quarry was very unique, as it is built within an old quarry, but it felt fairly natural to me and NOT contrived, like say Bay Harbor was when I played it this past July. This course is a million times better than Bay Harbor, hands down. And at a fraction of the price. This course is only a few years old and could be one of the BEST in Ohio. Most definitely worth playing if in the area. There were many opportunities for risk reward as well. Long, straight hitters can go over trees on several holes due to the elevated tee boxes. There were a few tight driving holes; with some of them visually pushing you into certain directions when you really wanted to hit the opposite type of shot for that hole. That made it tough and concentrating was difficult on these holes.
The green complexes were not overly undulated, but they definitely were not easy either. The greens were in perfect condition and fairly quick for a mid October morning. A few of the holes were Ross-esque to where a shot hitting the green could roll back off into a collection area. In short, good shots here at The Quarry can, in fact, be punished. I never felt as if I HAD to keep the driver in the bag on any hole, options were there for the taking.
The course tipped out at over 7,000 yards, I played it around 6400 and it was all I could handle. Play the right tees here and you will enjoy yourself. The 15th tee is a downhill par 5 that you drive over a VERY DEEP ravine. There was a wrecked golf cart down there at the bottom that someone had driven over the edge of the cliff. According to the grounds staff, the guy went all the way to the bottom, and lived to tell about it. Pretty scary, and I cannot believe he actually survived to tell about it.
I could play here all the time and be a happy camper (except for the walking part)
