Patrick
I think you are probably correct on why the 6th seems to play shorter than originally thought.
ed
Jack is quite fond of both greens 1 and 6. Both are at the end of par 4's that can be potentially driven under the correct conditions. Thus, the pitching game inside, say, 30 yards, can be quite demanding from the wrong angle. While these two are two of the more "birdieable" holes on the course, they will also produce some very ugly bogies when the player finds himself in an awkward position after his drive. Both will make the players think and rethink their strategy from the tee, depending on the playing conditions. That is what makes short holes interesting, imho.
Jack tends to prefer smaller putting surfaces. He likes the scale of Pebble Beach's greens for several reasons. They demand better shotmaking, better short games, and they speed up play since players don't mark their balls, putt and mark their balls again, and so on. Since PB's greens average 3621 sq feet, one would have to say Jack likes small greens. In fact, he often kids me about building his green sketches too big. He thinks I am fond of large greens, which I'm not particularly, but I don't think 5000 is necessarily large in most situtations. LOL
I wonder if anyone can guess which green at PB is the smallest. It is very close with another, so be careful, only one guess.