I love wild greens as much as the next man.
And no way would I agree with an expectation that every green needs to be reasonably easily two-puttable.
BUT...
make a lot of these greens pictured over say 9 stimp and it seems to me they get absurd. If I've said it once, I've said it 100 times (and I'd guess I am way closer to the latter): if a ball won't stay near a hole due to gravity, it's absurdity, not golf.
So while I've never been to Friar's Head, and this will be seen as blasphemy and so someone please do set me straight, well... from these descriptions the 7th green there seems more absurd to me than anything else. Please tell me that an uphill putt will stay by that pin location Ian describes. Because as long as that's true, than I have no problem with it and in fact will join you in its celebration. But absent that, well houston, we have a problem.
Tom,
If we take as an example a green like those old Sitwell Park pictures of its last, I don't think it would be a problem if it stimped at 9 or even something crazy like 12. Oh, it would be a terror to putt, and 4 putts would not be uncommon if it stimped beyond 10.5, but it looks like there are about 8 greens within a green there, even if each one only had one single spot that was pinnable you'd be OK, with a green that size you'd be spreading the traffic and shot variety nicely.
I've got the perfect place for that Sitwell green. There's a course in town here when I live that added a second nine recently and made some changes to correct some terrible architectural mistakes in the original 9, which resulted in splitting up a problem hole into a nifty little 270 yard par 4 that's actually pretty challenging, and a nondescript and totally lame and boring 110 yard par 3. I mean, this hole is so plain and awful I think it drops the course's Doak Score by two or three points, its THAT bad!
Ever since they did that I've been saying they should have done something with the green to make it more interesting, either making the green Postage Stamp sized with some interesting short game problems around it or making it huge and crazy. I could TOTALLY see that Sitwell Park green there -- everyone would hit the thing in regulation, but there'd be an awful lot of 4s and more than a few 5s. But a good shot to a pin cut in one of those mini punchbowls would reward the golfer with a really short birdie putt. Man, I wish I was in charge of that place, talk about a schizo green that people would love one day and hate the next! They did a really good job with some french drains to keep some big depressions in some wicked low lying ground dry, so I think they really could pull off that green if they tried.
I seriously am going to save that Sitwell Park pic and show it to the pro next year and try to sell him on this idea. Probably won't go anywhere because it'd cost money and they'd have to close the hole entirely for a fall and spring, but hey its a municipal owned course so they can afford it