Mike, by posting on this particular thread, I can't believe you are just making an idle comment, not asking if MS's courses can be thought of so highly, if they can't be maintained.
Well, I honestly think that is a fair question. Unfortunately, I have not maintenance experience to draw from to answer with any credibility.
So, I'd have to come at it from around the barn. How can courses with features like these Strantz courses exhibiting these verticle 3-6foot sand walls survive if they are unmaintainable? To survive, they have to be kept playable. Is it the very high greens fees that save the course from lesser maintanance and thus failing conditions and fewer players? Well, if that were the case, how does TR do it at about $60-75? Caledonia, and True Blue seem to have fees all over the map, and I heard a few unpublished specials. But, at the $150+ rate, they seem to be able to hire enough maintanance to address the issues of what some would say are unreasonably hard features to maintain.
I would say that the only other time I was at True Blue was about 1999 when I played Caledonia one day, and was going to play True Blue the next. However, a severe rain passed in the night, and when I went to the course, TB was literally washed out. I have some photos here somewhere. But all those steep faced bunkers were washed down and an army of guys were out there hand raking them back up.
But, I was particularly curious last week when Mike Whitaker hit his tee ball straight into the face of the 16th hole at TB, about a foot from the top and 3-4ft from the base. It stuck right there. It was completely unplayable. So, Mike sort of stabbed at the sand and it crumbled like some sort of sprayed on mix of sand and sticker. It led me to wonder how they get that sand to stick. I was imagining some sort of wet sand sprayer that is used to literally paint the sand on the vertical wall. I've seen the sand slurry machines before, but didn't see them used in that manner.
What do you think Mike?