Scott:
As Adam alludes, one of the things about the 10th is that you don't have to hit the drive into the fairway. The first time I played there, not realizing the distance to the neck [and with the rough down in December], I hit my drive onto the side of the hill and then got pin high with a "baseball swing" second shot as you aptly described it.
Many good players would say that having to play a hole in that manner is out of bounds, and that the stance for a second shot from the side of the hill is much too unpredictable. Indeed, it is ... and those players are welcome to lay back off the tee, or to try for the neck of fairway, instead. But my principal suggestion for that hole was to keep the rough on the hill mowed with some degree of regularity, so that golfers could try to play the hole in summer the way it does play in winter.
As I mentioned, the tenth is the only hole from the original, pre-Braid 18-hole layout which dates to 1907 I think. At the time it would have been a much more straightforward, three-shot par-5, as no one would have been able to drive the ball to where the fairway narrows so "unfairly". I doubt it would have been though of as quirky, back then. It is interesting how modern expectations sometimes completely change people's view of a hole: it is a great hole for a lot of players, just not for the longer hitters who think they decide these matters.