Scott:
I wish I could tell more clearly from your photos what is going on. The first view just looks like it has highlighted the greenside bunker we built. Strangely enough, I have not heard anything from the superintendent or the client in New Zealand about it yet, so hopefully it is not as desperate a situation as it looked to you.
Certainly, there is a potential for slippage on that hole, given the geology of the region [not to mention the history of earthquakes!]. We did have a geologist out there to look at the course, but he could not really provide any firm assessments about that hole. I did have some reservations about going out onto the point with the fifteenth, which is only 40 yards wide for most of its length, but the client loved the idea and wanted us to proceed, despite the risk that someday a major slippage could force the hole to be rerouted.
I agreed with that sentiment. Even if the hole only lasts for twenty or even ten years, everyone who has played it will remember it, and if it has to be changed later, this is a client who can afford it. (We had much the same discussion about putting the fourth green at Pacific Dunes so close to the cliff edge ... does anyone wish I'd put a 30-foot rumble strip of rough there and waited for nature to bring the cliff closer to the green?)
We are looking at a property right now with vast areas [50-100 acre swaths] of shifting sand dunes, trying to decide how close we should route our course to these hazards. Some would say we shouldn't build there at all, and if you believe that what you build has to last 100 years, they might be right. But then you'll never ever play a course with holes alongside great shifting dunes. I may take that chance.