I'm afraid when I'm playing I find it difficult to put my finger on excatly what was right or wrong about a course. All the more reason to walk the course, take photos, caddy, anything but play if you want to seriously analyse a course.
The routing, my ex-caddy playing partner kept pointing out, was great. The wind was always a factor and was difficult to predict, even when one sees that there are many parallel holes. The relative extent of exposure, hole to hole, is varied and one is thus challenged. So go figure, we were only there one day. The land is (and bear in mind I haven't seen most of the great Irish courses) comparable to Cruden Bay. The Dunes are on a grand scale, and yet there was only one completely blind approach to a green, which was, correctly punch bowl style and gorgeous. The turf was firm, somewhat springy and if you hadn't been to Melbourne or Machrihanish you would be hard pressed to imagine anything better. I'm a big turf man. The green complexes were varied and challenging, no bunkers on several holes, specifically the first 2, as I recall. Nice.
Here's what I came away with. I played quite well, to my 6 handicap expectations. I had great fun, I was asked to move the ball both ways, fly it, bump it, and I was forced to think, on pretty much every shot, if I were to have any chance to score. Not exactly what I got from the Doral.