"However, I am not a big fan of greens where you can't judge the hole location. I build them often, unintentionally, because I tend to choose slightly elevated locations for greens and any green at or above eye level makes it hard to judge the hole location. [Macdonald's elevated greens are deceptive for the same reason.] But I'm doing it to find a well-drained green site, not to fool golfers. I actually think it's a weakness of my work."
TomD:
I wonder too why you think that's a weakness in architecture.
There's that old saying in architecture that in some cases it comes down to a form of a chess game between the player and the archiect or perhaps more appropriately between the player and the land. There's deception of all kinds in chess and there's sure plenty of visual deception on natural landforms.
I realize architects may not want to resort to just outright trickery (some may've called it flukishness) in some form of visual deception but nonetheless why not use all the forms of visual deception that various natural landforms offer on their own? (in that sense the tee shot on Maidstone's #17 is one of the best examples of totally natural landform visual deception I have ever seen---in other words the tee shot landing area looks from the tee nothing like what it looks when you get out there. Like the 13th and 14th at The Creek that is also very much predicated on how high they allow the reeds to get at any particular time).
There are a number of holes I know of, and some on my own course where despite playing the course a thousand times I still sometimes can't exactly figure out where the pin is on the green for a variety of reasons.
To me this is great stuff because unlike some of the other examples given on here of bunkers hiding open ground over and past them, for instance, or even the example of Maidstone's 17th those techniques really only fool a golfer once---the first time.
Those greens where it's sometimes hard to tell where the pin may be on them despite playing them hundreds of times are capable of "holding the con", if you know what I mean. I like that and I don't view it as some form of blatant trickery or flukishness in architecture and certainly not a weakness in architecture.
So, I wonder why you view it as a weakness in architecture.
Don't you think that designs that often make you use just your experience and your imagination are some of the best kind?