Bridges and Golf - Piles of Junk Worth Visiting

[Jason Thurman]

I’ve just returned from my third trip to Greater NYC in the last month. I still love sights like the Manhattan skyline, and it’s still painful but compelling to drive past MetLife Stadium. The things that really excite me, though, are the bridges. I love engineering achievements related to water, particularly bridges and dams. I don’t just get excited to walk the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade, I also get excited to walk through Brooklyn Heights and see the neighborhood where John Roebling lived. In particular, I love suspension bridges, and the George Washington is one of the best in the world. Driving the upper level and seeing the perfect geometry of the rise and fall of the supporting cables, with the exposed frame of the towers juxtaposed against the exposed cliffs on either side of the Hudson is a thrill. It’s not quite the prettiest bridge I’ve ever seen, but it is the sexiest.

Driving from Newark to Tarrytown on Sunday night took me across the Washington. On my return trip to Newark last night, I had a choice. Return to the Washington, or go across the Tappan Zee, the decrepit, ugly pile of crap that has been identified as one of the bridges most likely to fail in the US.

I went back to the Washington, but I thought about the Tappan Zee and was bummed that I didn’t get a good view of it on the way down 87. In the end, the Washington is too good to pass up and the Tappan Zee is literally in danger of falling apart on the drive across, not to mention further out of the way. But it was still tempting and I’d like to cross it another day.

If the Washington is a bit like Pebble Beach, with its cliffside sex appeal, stunning views, and poor “pace of play” dictated by policy from the people up top, then what courses are like the Tappan Zee? Decrepit, beaten up, but still noteworthy and with a certain charm that stems from their generally poor initial conception and years of neglect. I’ll nominate Poppy Hills and East Potomac.

[Mike Hendren]

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[Matthew Petersen]

Perhaps Pacific Grove, if we're staying in the neighborhood.

[Garland Bayley]

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Why did you delete it? I was so looking forward to your post. 

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Didn't the approaches to George Washington pass over what was a former US Open course, Englewood or Fresh Meadow?

[Josh Tarble]

What would you consider to be the bridge on #10 at Bel-Air? 

[Matthew Lloyd]

This is the sort of brilliant analogy thread that can only be found on GCA. 

I would nominate Treetops.  Maybe this is revisionist history on my part, but I swear that the original course at the resort was great when it first arrived. These days, wow.  I will definitely never be going back there.  I was only in middle school when I first played there so I had not been exposed to many good golf courses -- and in hindsight I realize how flawed the course and concept is -- but each individual hole still used to be fun to play.  Last time I was there the place was a disaster zone. 

[Nigel Islam]

When I was a teenager I think some truck went over the guardrails of the Sherman Minton Bridge (or at least almost onto the bridge) and tragically killed someone on Shawnee in Louisville. So I will nominate the Sherman Minton's golf course double as Shawnee. Somehow I don't think that is what you were after though............

[JLahrman]

I commuted over the Bay Bridge from Oakland to San Francisco nearly every work day for almost 5 years, and watched the new eastern span being built. Then I moved to Austin three months before it was completed.

The new Bay Bridge span went way, way, way over budget and took forever to complete (it was built in response to seismic concerns over the 1989 quake). It's been criticized for trading in stability for looks (one Berkeley professor is convinced that it is actually less stable than the old span). There were concerns up to the last minute about bolt failures. The bridge is already leaking more than it's apparently supposed to. It's a great-looking span but will continue to play second fiddle to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Any takers?

[Matthew Rose]

Interesting concept. One of my other eccentric passions is roads, highways, and bridges.

I think bridge design actually kind of parallels the history of golf course design, in that you have so many types of bridges that seem to be era specific.

A lot of bridges built in the 20s/30s/40s have a distinctive look about them... you have your suspension bridges, and your steel cantilever contraptions, like the kind you see in the midwest along the Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio Rivers... these days they remain in use on smaller highways connecting the smaller towns, as the major river crossings tend to all have been replaced by interstates or otherwise. I love looking at those kinds of bridges from a distance, although I'm not terribly crazy about crossing them, since they all seem to be falling apart and tend to be barely wide enough for my car, and aren't meant to handle anything close to the amount of traffic they get now.

Then in the 60s and 70s, they started building your normal run-of-the-mill concrete girder bridges, which are basically slabs of concrete on pillars. These are obviously very functional, but they aren't remotely interesting to cross or look at. This is also at a point where the interstates were being built and thousands of these type went up. I guess you could call this the "RTJ" era of bridge design?

In the last 20 years, you've started seeing more artistic structures again, like the new cable-stayed types (the new St. Louis bridge, for example). You even see new bridges being built to resemble old ones - the new bridge crossing the Ohio from Madison, IN to Milton, KY is being built to look like the old one, which is one of those cantilever types.

So, I don't know if I'd go so far as to say the old bridges are "golden age" bridges, since so many of them are functionally obsolete now....although I guess you could say a lot of Ross courses are "functionally obsolete" with the new balls and clubs.

But I think it is interesting how bridge design has kind of paralleled the GCA eras a little bit.

[John Percival]

Jason,
How about we also look the other way:
   For sheer brawn on the NYC's edge , the Verrazano is like.....
   And the Brooklyn Bridge is.....

[Patrick_Mucci]

Didn't the approaches to George Washington pass over what was a former US Open course, Englewood or Fresh Meadow?

Mark,

I-80 was built by bisecting Englewood Golf course.
a tunnel was built underneath I-80 allowing golfers to transition from the South portion to the North portion and back again.

A developer came along and made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

Englewood had a lot of history and a lot of interesting characters as members.

Fresh Meadow is nowhere near the GWB

Jason,

The Tappan Zee Bridge isn't as bad as you make it out to be.
A new Tappan Zee Bridge is currently under construction just north of the current bridge.

[mike_beene]

Jason, I am sure you have read McCollough's great book on the Brooklyn Bridge.If not ,you must.

[Pete_Pittock]

Chambers Bay/Galloping Gertie ?l

[Kevin_Reilly]

I commuted over the Bay Bridge from Oakland to San Francisco nearly every work day for almost 5 years, and watched the new eastern span being built. Then I moved to Austin three months before it was completed.

The new Bay Bridge span went way, way, way over budget and took forever to complete (it was built in response to seismic concerns over the 1989 quake). It's been criticized for trading in stability for looks (one Berkeley professor is convinced that it is actually less stable than the old span). There were concerns up to the last minute about bolt failures. The bridge is already leaking more than it's apparently supposed to. It's a great-looking span but will continue to play second fiddle to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Any takers?

Joel, I drove that old bridge probably more times than most on this board, and I don't miss it one nanosecond.  Ugly, unsafe, no shoulders for stalls/accidents...what more could you ask for?  I'm not an engineer but I would love to have some of what that Cal professor is smoking. 

To Jason T, I am playing the renovated Poppy Hills in April and I imagine it will be not a choice for this thread.

For bridge piles of junk worth visiting, I would recommend the San Mateo Bridge over the SF Bay, but only if you have a fast car and are looking for a long straightaway to go at high speed.  It is one of the best spots in Northern Calif for that.

[Charlie_Bell]

Sorry, Jason, but I've always loved the Tappan Zee.  Not only does its name thrill on several levels, but the low-slung curve of the roadway on the New Jersey side gives the approach a sling-like effect that's every bit as racy as the vertical sweep of the GW.  Yes, it is much neglected, but it's not nearly as decrepit or scary as, say, the Pulaski Skyway.  

I understand your admiration for the GW, but its sexiness is far more muscular and masculine than that of the T-Zee.  Worse, from either side of the river the approaches to the GW are ugly and abrupt.  They offer little in the way of welcome anticipation, and the roadways themselves are in appallingly bad shape.  Is there a worse stretch of pot-holed macadam in the U. S. than that leading from the Henry Hudson to the GW?  And can you name a more awkward, halting, constipated approach to a bridge than the claustrophobic collection of underpasses and toll booths of Fort Lee -- even on days when Chris Christie's minions aren't playing chess with the traffic cones?

Seriously.  The George Washington is one impressive Erector-set of a landmark, but the Tappan Zee is a lovely, languid melding of form and function, as sensuous as a warm breeze on a summer night, as seductive as a string of pearls...

[Mark Bourgeois]

Tappan Zee is irredeemable in every sense so I am not sure the initial analogy holds. The GW is a great (gray) bridge but if you want spectacular try the next Hudson River bridge up from the TZ.

[Tim Martin]

Didn't the approaches to George Washington pass over what was a former US Open course, Englewood or Fresh Meadow?


The Tappan Zee Bridge isn't as bad as you make it out to be.
A new Tappan Zee Bridge is currently under construction just north of the current bridge.

I agree with Pat on the Tappan Zee. When traveling south on a clear day you get a stunning glimpse of the Manhattan skyline which doesn't come into view until you are at the apex of the bridge.