Jim, I was nursing a hand injury so didn't play Mountain Brook a couple of weeks ago, but did walk the course with a foursome. Brian Silva did a good job restoring many Ross features, including grass faced bunkers of real quality.
Mountain Brook is fascinating in its varied terrain. I posted some photos after my tour (and only of the first few holes before my battery died
). The first couple of holes are in the flat flood plain valley below the clubhouse, then the course goes up into the hillside south of the valley. Interestingly enough, the hillside holes have almost no greenside bunkering, but little is needed as the severe slopes around the greens present plenty of challenge.
By contrast, the valley holes are well-bunkered and present fun challenges featuring a wide and deep creek that runs throughout that valley. There are a couple of holes late in the round that are a bit out of character for Ross -- #15 has way too many bunkers around a hillside par 3 green -- but the finisher is a tricky dogleg with a wide fairway hidden by bunkers and a big oak.
I'm back up there for a round Nov 9th and looking forward to it. So far we have two, if there are GCAers who might have access to this fine old, well-restored course, shoot me an IM.