Wayne M:
Appreciate your vouging for my sanity!
Gents:
Phil is quite correct -- the "interesting" greens at BB cause you to believe you should be holing more putts than you actually do. The breaks can be so subtle that you fail to capitalize when you believe it should be so automatic and find out otherwise.
Wayne makes a good point seeing the course in midseason form is a clear thing to consider. Look, I've played TOC in October and it's not the same as when you play it in say June or July. Yes, it's the same physical layout, but the chemistry of the course doesn't shine at its best.
I've played the Black for over 30 years and seen the changes and frankly I am somewhat enamored with the past when the course was a bit more scraggy and rough looking -- my thoughts, I believe, were also echoed by David Fay. The turf improvements -- especially on the tees, fairways and greens were long overdue and clearly welcomed, but the course also became a bit more prepped than I would prefer in the natural rough grasses. The sight lines of seeing the "unkept" look make for such a vivid contrats as you walk through the layout when playing.
The Black needs its former WILD and WOOLY look. If you dress up the Black with a 100% uniformity then the spirit of the layout becomes too predictable -- too refined.
The Black also needs to be played with fairways at a width that allows for a broader array of playing angles. I don't doubt having narrow fairways during the Open may be a requirement but the overall character of the course is more fully enjoyed with greater playing widths that introduce a whole series of shots that quite likely Mike and others may not have seen.
I have to say this -- there are those who believe that unless greens are sculptured to the exact tone and nature of a Mackenzie or Ross or Maxwell or Flynn then the end product fof the layout will in their mind "lack" something. The greens at roughly 1/3 of the course could use some tweaking -- particularly holes like #2 and #9 which are quite pedestrian given how superb the tee-to-green aspects play before reaching the putting surfaces.
If the Black were to have the green demands of say what Tom Doak did at Lost Dunes in Michigan then literally no one could finish playing the course. Like Davis Love said from the quote provided to Phil -- the 15th green at BB is beyond what you find at even Augusta National -- if you had a bulk of those types of greens at BB I can see the charge now from others saying the course is impossible to play save for the elite few.
The Black has a feel that is clearly special -- the massive sprawl of the land as you walk from one to the other -- the rolling Manetto Hills of the Island provide for wonderful outlets as a number of greens sit on elevated targets and the sheer pressure placed on your driving game -- an element vastly underappreciated by the many green-aholic devotees here on GCA.
Phil:
In all fairness -- the Black is not the consumate layout you find with Winged Foot / West IMHO. For years I believed otherwsie but in really sifting through all the arguments the totality of what Tillinghast did at the Mamaroneck layout is a bit beyond what you see with the Black. If the Black were to truly tweak a few of its shortcomings -- most notably the 18th, among a few others -- then a real argument could be made -- not now though.