Just to throw my $.02 in on this discussion, I would have to say that there is a such thing as an unfair hole from a player's perspective. I would define such as a hole or a shot on a hole, that, regardless of the type of shot hit, the results were all the same. What comes to mind is the 7th at Shinny in the Open. I watched David Toms in the practice round hit what looked to be a beautiful 8 iron right at the flag, and while in flight he began waving at the ball. I didn't know what he was doing, but I soon found out that it didn't matter the quality of the shot, all the balls were going to wind up over the back of the green. Also, I recall playing at Olympic in the US Amateur in 1981 and also walking inside the ropes in a practice round in the last Open held there and two holes played the same. The 4th and 17th both had such pitched fairways from left to right, that regardless of the shot played off the tee, even a duck hook, all the balls ultimately found their way to the right rough. In both of these cases, it didn't matter what the quality of the shot was, the results were going to be very close to the same. I do not think that is fair or good design. Design like that takes the objective fun out of the game, and too much of that just makes golf less fun, imho. I think all golfers would like to be rewarded for playing a quality shot, and not have the results be the same as a poor shot. Even if everyone has the same available recovery. There is a difference between unfair and quirky. Quirky, to me, means that the best shot is not always the most obvious and it may take playing that hole or course several times to learn about how to best play certain shots. But quirky does not mean that the shot is impossible, just different than most others. I think some quirky is good in a course, just to keep everything interesting.