MikeC:
Very interesting! You and I are mostly on the same page about architecture, so since it appears that we may not be in this example, maybe now is the perfect opportunity for us (and others) to have a really interesting and valid discussion about the strategic ramifications of AAC, about architecture, what strategy is and isn't and some of its finer points. I'll present my case and you can analyze it and critique it and vice versa.
First of all, let me say again that the last three holes (or last five holes) of AAC and the entire golf course, for that matter, is not one I consider in any way to be natural looking. Just the opposite in fact! It is extremely modern looking in style, construction, its entire presentation to the golfer and viewer! And I know you know that I definitely prefer a golf course with a far more natural look in almost everyway.
That being said, though, to really analyze a golf course's strategic ramifications alone, one should move past the "look" of it (modern or classic and natural) to a large extent. Not entirely, mind you, because a course like a Pine Valley with its ruggedly fearsome "look" alone can have a large pyschological impact on some golfers and their decision making. But if that golfer could somehow put aside his concern and inure himself against that fearsome "look" (something that Crump was very much asking the golfer to do), then that golfer could start to concern himself with the very much more meaningful strategic ramifications.
I'll also concede that the type of course that AAC is strategically is one of far more "shot dictation" than some of the best of the classic courses, their multi options and multi features with their (feature) placements and their angles. Many times that to me is more interesting than many modern courses but it's not a given, therefore, that modern courses do not have strategic ramifications and sometimes extremely interesting ones.
The choices at AAC are without doubt starker (the margins for error are far slimer), and as such the shot price-paying is starker, more meaningful and consequently the strategies may be more ones of "shot dictation" and one dimensionality compared to some of the best of the classic multi optional style. I'm sure too that very stark choices in design have a way of radiating themselves and of affecting the golfer too--whether this is good or bad in a strategic design sense is probably subjecive!
But still, I think you would have to admit that the options available to those two players yesterday were in no way automatically made for them by the design of the course! As you could see by the way the tournament played out through the last five holes there was much opportunity for those players to make some extremely interesting, dramatic and gut-wrenching choices that varied widely. The choices may not have been as numerous as you and I might have ideally liked, but nonetheless the spectrum was wide and meaningful.
I also in no way agree with your analogy of what a player like 'poor Fred Funk' is faced with on #18. If an architect was intent on designing holes where all golfers and certainly all touring pros were faced with the exact same shots and options then those holes would not be much more interesting to me than bowling lanes with their pins.
Funk didn't succeed on tour by hitting his drives as long as Mickelson. He succeeded in hitting them more accurately and probably in making more conservative (and intelligent) decisions in the course of a round or tournament than Mickelson. Although I really don't know, I would be willing to bet you that Funk makes far less birdies and eagles than Mickelson in the course of a year but that he also makes far less doubles and others! This kind of thing makes watching even tour golf far more interesting than if those guys were more the same.
There is another contradication here too regarding what many of us say about golf holes. How many times have we heard people on here say that the game is nothing more than massive drives and pitching wedges these days and that's really boring. We often seem to long for the bygone days when really good players had to test their long irons (Ross's test of a good player) or fairway woods or maybe even, Heaven forbid, the choice of laying up so as not to pay some horrible price! Well, here we finally have a hole where even the touring pros are occassionally faced with long irons and yes even the occassional 3 wood or the prospect of laying up! And, Oh My God, it's a par 4 too!!
Because the choice is determined largely by water, does that make it less of a choice or does that make the design less good? How could it? Would it be more interesting if the hole had no water, was still 490yd and the choice facing the player was simply could he hit the green and a real close shot or was the price for missing it maybe coming up 20yds short with a recovery chip? Each of us can answer that in his own way, I'm sure!
The point to me is that hole was doable in a number of ways, set up maybe not by a huge number of choices, but still very meaningful ones from tee to green. It's design might not be real nice looking to many of us but it got its strategic job done well and very dramatically. Unlike, for instance, that ridiculous #17 hole at Valderama which had the capacity to shut down even the best layed plans and shots! It's also pretty interesting to note that many of the final holes at AAC and certainly the last one did not exactly take their toll from players who hit really bad shots. Most of the price was paid by players who made iffy choices with quite well executed shots. Again the deal strategically there was one of some slim margins for error and I'm fairly certain that fact was not lost on those touring pros!
And furthermore, Mike, I hardly think a hole like #18 is going to force or humiliate even a guy like Funk into making some really dumb choice like going for the green because he thinks people expect him to. It's probably far more likely that he made his decision more on where he stood in the tournament and what that meant to him. If he wasn't going to pay a real big price in dollars or whatever, he probably thought the risk was worth it. Shingo's choices throughout the tournament were more interesting in that vein and certainly more important since he was right there most of the way. His high risk gambling choices and shots also supplied the PGA Championship with some of its best drama!
And the fact that #18 was a par 4 instead of a par 5 probably has little to do with the decision making of a tour pro too. Their thinking is generally based more on what their fellow competitors are doing on a particular hole and where they stand and so forth. Whether the hole is a par 4 or a par 5 is likely almost meaningless to them. What is meaningful is how they can make the lowest number without really risking making a high number and is generally what they consider. Some of us might fall into that kind of forced poor decision making but we don't play golf for a living either!
Another thing about the decision making which I found interesting on #18 with the last group was not so much whether Toms could carry the water or not. He clearly had a club that could have done that--his 5 wood. But he happened to be in a spot that was both slightly sidehill and downhill too making that shot a bit more problematic (and I guess one would fairly have to attribute that subtelty to the design. Anyway he could probably have carried the water but maybe too well, too hot or whatever and made the whole situation for himself more complex than a simple lay-up, SW and scrambling par the so-called hard way! Toms also did not hit his longest or best drive on #18 which is understandable on a hole like that in that pressure packed situation.
So again, I agree with the previous posters that AAC is not the kind of course I like to look at--I like the older style and the more rugged natural look better and maybe a course with more choices and even subtler choices. But that preference doesn't mean to me that AAC didn't have some interesting strategies and choices to it.
Lastly, I've always thought that strategy or the consideration of what is strategic on a golf course meant trying to get the ball from the tee to the hole in the fewest shots, always having to weigh WHAT might make you pay a price or some high price in that attempt. And then of course you need to factor in the more subtle ramifications of where you stand in the tourament vis-a-vis your fellow competitors and what exactly the course gives you in any particular place in that vein.
So I don't know if I would say that AAC was actually really good architecture per se, but if good architecture involves strategic ramifications and particularly dramatic ones and also dramatic results, then I would have to disagree with you when you say that AAC was not particularly strategic. There were some gut wrenching choices made at the PGA Championship yesterday all over the place and particularly on those last five holes, and fail or succeed most of the choices involved some shot making that went from pretty decent to spectacular.
It all involved some interesting and gut wrenching choices and some great shot making too, so if that wasn't strategic, then what is strategic?
The question is not rhetorical! I'm sure you will have some interesting counterpoints and that's what this web-site is all about.