Quirk in the US

[Ira Fishman]

Many of us embrace and celebrate quirk.  I certainly do.  However, when I reflect on the courses with wonderful quirk, my memory takes me back to links courses in Scotland and Ireland.  It cannot be the case that US courses do not have wonderful quirk, can it?


Ira

[Tom_Doak]

Most of the quirk on UK courses is old stuff ... before all the design books were written in the 1920's.


Not many US courses go back that far, and most that do have had the money to rebuild and eliminate the quirk they started with.


We are just not as tolerant of quirk.  $$$ can eliminate it, and we are more willing to spend those $ than the Scots are.

[Ira Fishman]

Tom,


Why are those of us in the US less enthusiastic about quirk?  It strikes me that several of your clients probably appreciated quirk when they played in Scotland and Ireland so why say No Go in the US?


Ira

[jeffwarne]

Tom,


Why are those of us in the US less enthusiastic about quirk?  It strikes me that several of your clients probably appreciated quirk when they played in Scotland and Ireland so why say No Go in the US?


Ira

Better players at the club drive policy.
Better players HATE the thought that someone could get a lucky bounce or that they could misjudge a blind shot and lose shots due to quirk.
Lesser players never want to be seen as ignorant so they go along.


The reality is that acceptance(or better yet avoidance) of unpredictable bounces is a skill in itself as is the ability to see a shot in one's minds eye even when blind. Most blind shots are highly predictable if one actually knows the course

[Sean_A]

I think there is more US quirk than folks realize.  Some of these tours of lesser known east coast courses prove that.  It might just be an issue of accessiblity and places falling through the cracks when rankings became so important.

Ciao

[Edward Glidewell]

I think there is more US quirk than folks realize.  Some of these tours of lesser known east coast courses prove that.  It might just be an issue of accessiblity and places falling through the cracks when rankings became so important.

Ciao

I think accessibility is part of it for the private courses, but I also think there's likely a lot of quirk in old municipal/public courses that have been around forever and never spent any money to change anything. But those courses are generally going to be in less populated areas and have poor conditioning, so they are only going to be known to locals and probably not worth traveling to see. They may be both quirky and bad.


I know I've played a course in some small town (can't even remember where) that had some really strange, quirky holes, but it wasn't a good golf course. It certainly wasn't something people would be taking trips to see.

[Sean_A]

I think there is more US quirk than folks realize.  Some of these tours of lesser known east coast courses prove that.  It might just be an issue of accessiblity and places falling through the cracks when rankings became so important.

Ciao

I think accessibility is part of it for the private courses, but I also think there's likely a lot of quirk in old municipal/public courses that have been around forever and never spent any money to change anything. But those courses are generally going to be in less populated areas and have poor conditioning, so they are only going to be known to locals and probably not worth traveling to see. They may be both quirky and bad.

I know I've played a course in some small town (can't even remember where) that had some really strange, quirky holes, but it wasn't a good golf course. It certainly wasn't something people would be taking trips to see.

Ed

Thats true, quirk doesn't mean its good stuff. 

I know we like to think the frugal Scots etc wouldn't spend money to eliminate quirk, but I think that notion is very wrong.  A lot of quirk (ever hear of blind holes?) was removed after the Oxbridge set became the gurus.  Not all of their ideas were good despite what their own writings profess 

Ciao

[Kalen Braley]

I think outside of GB&I, you aren't going to find much quirk anywhere else in the world due to as Tom states, it being poo-poo'd by Golden Age golf writers.


When I think US quirk, I think mostly of Engh and Stranz...although the quirkest course I've ever played, (and its not even close), is a home job just outside of Spokane, WA.  Some of the craziest holes I've ever played, most of it in WTF category, but a few of the holes are really cool/fun.

[Peter Pallotta]

Old Money.
It's quirkier than New Money. It has nothing to prove, and couldn't care less what anyone thinks.
Charmingly batty and insouciant, like a young Katherine Hepburn, instead of self-consciously newsworthy and stylish, like a young Kim Kardashian. 
Faded clapboard siding instead of precisely cut marble and stone.
An old cable-knit sweater tossed over the shoulders and holding down a floppy gardening hat instead of $800 Galvin Green gore-text.
But Old Money's heyday is long past, and the New Money doesn't look to be going Old Money anytime soon. 

[Tim Martin]

Herbert Strong’s original 1918 effort at Engineers had to be as quirky as anything built in the U.S. in the Golden Age. There were a lot of great old threads with Tom MacWood and many of the other usual suspects discussing the golf course. The 14th or “2 or 20” hole is as cool and quirky as it gets.

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:  yes, and Old Money has been carefully trained not to spend their money keeping up with the Joneses.


Which made me realize that the better answer to the original question is that since the late stages of the Golden Age, courses in America have been commercial ventures.  I'm not sure who coined the phrase "the customer is always right," but I'd guess it wasn't an old golf pro from Musselburgh.

[Peter Pallotta]

 
That last line is a real keeper, Tom. You could write an entire book (or at least a long essay) around it!

[Pete_Pittock]

My definition of quirk would include the use of rocks and outcropping of rock (not the Sherwood/Tiger boulder). In my few forays into the NE the sheer number of such encounters, and the routings around them, were outstanding and provide much character.


But I come from an area without them and courses that were Doak 5 or less. 

[James Brown]

I think is way more quirk on US courses that the OP supposes.  It’s just that most of the quirk on US courses is not on private courses.  It’s on munis and courses with owner/designers. 


For example, is there a single course in the UK where there is a tree so close to the tee box of a par 4/5 that it makes for a super awkward shot?  How many US courses have par threes where you have to hit right over a tree?


We have courses with boomerang par 5s.


We have courses with bunkers shaped like, well everything. 


We have bunkers in the middle of greens. 


We have courses with watering systems to keep bunker sand from blowing away that are held up as models of modern natural design.


We have tee boxes that are visibly aimed way off line on purpose. 


I think we have plenty of quirk.


Just maybe less blind shots or holes designed to create bad bounces. 

[Kevin_Reilly]

We have a completely blind first green at Orinda (a short par four where you can't see the green for your second shot unless you drive the ball 270+ to reach the crest of the hill in front of the green).  By all definitions, that is "quirk". 


A few architects over the years have proposed making the green visible from all points in the fairway.  Thankfully that never happened.  We happily ring the bell upon leaving the green to notify the game behind us that the green is clear.


Here is Matt Cohn teeing off on the hole ...he made it just over the edge of the hill, IIRC, leaving a downhill 60-70 yd shot for his approach. 


https://youtu.be/XaSruVNfp7U


PS...the camera emphasizes/distorts the cart path on the right...standing on the tee, you really look off into a big area in the distance.

[Kyle Harris]

The word Alex Findlay are basically synonymous with Quirk in the Northeast. Manor GC and Galen Hall GC near Reading, PA are studies in the matter.


As Tom Doak alluded, he's an old golf pro from the same nation as Musselburgh.


I have yet to play a good Tillinghast golf course that didn't feature a quirk or three.

[Joe Bausch]

The word Alex Findlay are basically synonymous with Quirk in the Northeast. Manor GC and Galen Hall GC near Reading, PA are studies in the matter.

Manor photos:

http://www.myphillygolf.com/uploads/bausch/Manor/index.html

Galen Hall photos:

http://www.myphillygolf.com/uploads/bausch/GalenHall/index.html

[Niall C]

Ed

Thats true, quirk doesn't mean its good stuff. 

I know we like to think the frugal Scots etc wouldn't spend money to eliminate quirk, but I think that notion is very wrong.  A lot of quirk (ever hear of blind holes?) was removed after the Oxbridge set became the gurus.  Not all of their ideas were good despite what their own writings profess 

Ciao

Sean

I think in a general sense Tom D is correct, or at least partially correct. Firstly building greens behind walls etc. wasn't seen as quirk back in the day, just good design using a fair hazard. The other thing to consider about using walls, and more than a few courses had them, is that they had two other functions, firstly to keep livestock in and secondly to mark the boundary of the property neither of which were really golf design issues.

With regards to removing blind shots, that would usually entail rerouting the course which could be expensive, disruptive and difficult to achieve on the small sites that courses usually occupy in this country.

I suspect in the US, many of the above issues don't prevail ?

Niall

[Matthew Petersen]

Most of the quirk on UK courses is old stuff ... before all the design books were written in the 1920's.


Not many US courses go back that far, and most that do have had the money to rebuild and eliminate the quirk they started with.


We are just not as tolerant of quirk.  $$$ can eliminate it, and we are more willing to spend those $ than the Scots are.

I think there's still plenty of quirk in the US. It's just that because the courses are all newer, what might be considered quirk were it on a 200 year old Scottish course, is simply considered bad architecture here.

[Doug Wright]

Looking for (and finding) quirk, particularly in unexpected places, is one of my favorite things about playing golf courses. Certainly liability issues take quirk out of the equation for many modern courses. I love blind holes with bells and the like but there aren't many being built these days. However, if you look for it you'll find it. For example, Jim Engh's Fossil Trace GC is loaded with quirky features such as an abandoned kiln in the middle of the first fairway, a drivable Dell hole second, rock formations left in the middle of the par 5 12th and his perhaps overused multi-tiered greens. Engh's bunkerless Four Mile Ranch in remote Canon City, CO has blind shots into Dell greens and some other  Even Tom Doak has some quirky features, not the least of which is the E green 7th at Ballyneal (and others I mention below). Anyway, my post from a quirk thread  from March 2003(!) follows below. I do think if one views quirk as idiosyncratic there is quite a lot of it here on golf courses in the USA. 

"I guess my training makes me too much of a literalist; hence on topics like these I go looking for my dictionary. Quirk is defined herewith:

a : an abrupt twist or curve; b : a peculiar trait : IDIOSYNCRASY;  c : ACCIDENT, VAGARY  <a quirk of fate>

I really like the descriptive word "idiosyncrasy" in subdefinition b in describing golf architecture "quirk." Something that seems out of place or odd. It certainly can be natural or man-made.

If you look at Bandon Dunes vs. Pacific Dunes (wrong thread I know!), one of the distinguishing characteristics of Pacific Dunes is that Doak designed or built quirk into the course. The green at #8 and the entire 9th hole come to mind. I didn't really see quirk at Bandon Dunes--a fine course don't get me wrong, but lacking in quirk. See also Dooks, as Tim Weiman suggests.

Quirk makes me laugh and also can make me cry.  Maybe it's quirk's propensity to do the latter that causes many to decry the presence of quirk in a golf course.

God Bless America,"

[David Davis]

I think there is more than we give credit to as well. Maybe not as many blind shots but I'd guess insurance also has a lot to do with that. Imagine all the law suits from impatient golfers that fire away over blind hills before they hear the bell ring.


Tobacco Road is definitely quirky, Myopia Hunt Club and Eastward Ho just to name a few.

[SL_Solow]

When I was in law school and I needed to get away from Cambridge, I would drive to Brookline and play Putterham Meadows.  Credited to Stiles and Van Kleek circa 1923.  I haven't been back since the mid 70's but back then the course was full of quirk.  Rock outcroppings,  a blind drive with a periscope.  , another with a bell at the bottom of the fairway.  A blind approach to a perched green.  Lots of quirk on one course which backs up to The Country Club.  Difficult property before earth moving equipment which likely explains the amount of quirk.  I rarely get back during warm weather but if I do, I will likely check it out.

[Tom_Doak]

If you look at Bandon Dunes vs. Pacific Dunes (wrong thread I know!), one of the distinguishing characteristics of Pacific Dunes is that Doak designed or built quirk into the course. The green at #8 and the entire 9th hole come to mind. I didn't really see quirk at Bandon Dunes--a fine course don't get me wrong, but lacking in quirk. See also Dooks, as Tim Weiman suggests.

In the first version of The Confidential Guide, I wrote about how quirky The National Golf Links of America was, and the members apparently did not like my use of that term at all - although the old pro there, Mike Muller, always called me "Quirky Doak" afterward.


I have never found a definition of the term as applied to golf architecture that I was totally comfortable with.  For me, most quirky things are unusual features that were part of the site, and that became part of the golf course in an unusual way.  Example:  old stone walls like the one at North Berwick, and the Cardinal bunker or the railway tracks or the blind hill on the Alps, at Prestwick.  You also see a lot of that in New England.  Sterling Farms, where I grew up, had a small family farm cemetery [that was out of bounds] inside the dogleg on the short par-4 16th . . . that's quirky!


So I guess I wouldn't see the 8th green at Pacific Dunes as quirky, even though it's unusual.  Maybe the tree that was growing out of the back bunker and overhanging the recovery shot was quirky, before it blew over.  The 9th, maybe a bit more quirky because of its blindness.

[Peter Pallotta]

Maybe quirk is more appealing in print than it is in person.

I've read about many examples of quirk in GB&I that struck me as utterly charming; but I've rarely played an example of quirk that I've enjoyed here in Canada.

In person they just seem like 'mistakes.'

[Garland Bayley]

Many of us embrace and celebrate quirk.  I certainly do.  However, when I reflect on the courses with wonderful quirk, my memory takes me back to links courses in Scotland and Ireland.  It cannot be the case that US courses do not have wonderful quirk, can it?


Ira

Seems you need to take a look at Astoria CC.