I'm not so sure that Woodlands works over every club in the bag, especially the par.4's. I played the Vic Open there this year and of the 20 par 4's I played, I hit 1 5-iron and 1 6-iron into greens, everything else was 7-LW.
The 5-iron was on 16 after hitting a rescue off the tee. I am not long off the tee at all, but still hit 9-iron into 10 both days, SW and PW into 14, 6 and 7-iron into 9 and when I hit driver on 16 in the second round had 8-iron in.
To me the par 4's at KH work over all your irons a lot more than Woodlands does. Also the green complexes are better designed for longer club approaches, which is very important down the line if tees are to be pushed back.
Rich, I probably should have qualified that with "for mere mortals"
. Whilst you may not be long off the tee in comparison with your peer group and I've never seen you play from you've just cited you are probably well within the top 1% for driving distance of all golfers. It is probably a fair illustration of why it is futile building ever longer courses, as the added length poses relatively less challenge to the tiny amount of elite golfers than to the majority of golfers who have trouble hitting it anywhere near 200 metres, usually considerably less.
Which in part answers Kevin's question about why I view Woodlands the way I do. It is short enough to provide plenty of opportunity for the ordinary golfer, whilst providing plenty of challenge for the elite golfer. It gets it right as well as any course I've played. A large part of this is the result of having the 3 short par fours with great risk/reward elements. KH, with the 3 or 4 extra long par fours, is slightly less ideal (imo
). I have vivid memories being paired with an 18 and 20 marker at KH who scored 25 stablefords - in a better ball - with perfect still conditions
. My disdain is chiefly reserved for modern courses such as Moonah Links Open and National Moonah - not terribly difficult for top golfers but absurdly so for the average chopper. The choppers simply have no chance of being able to string enough decent shots together to negotiate those sort of distances. Of course, it is a matter of perspective, and I don't really give much weight to how a professional or elite amateur plays a course as they pretty much play a different game from the rest of us. Others clearly place a much greater weight at that end of the spectrum.
You last point about "Soutar's brief was almost the antithesis of good architecture". I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this...
Anthony, Soutar's brief was along the lines of delivering a championship course that will stand the test of time. KH was in many ways the Moonah Links Open course of its day, with a lot of controversy about its length. I don't find it surprising that MacKenzie recommended reducing its length. This narrow brief is presumably why what was then an extremely long golf course was delivered. My experience playing with double digit club golfers most weeks suggests it is difficult, if not impossible, to cater for the all levels of golfers building such long courses. It is a testament to their success in fulfilling this brief that I reckon it is still too difficult for the typical 'c' grader even today. Clearly, I expect everyone to disagree with me.