Rich: It's possible that Kingsbarns is more well thought out in that regard than most courses ... or it's possible they just don't share their maintenance issues in a public forum.
For Pacific Dunes we were very aware of which way the prevailing winds blew, and making sure we didn't get a lot of sand blown onto our greens. I was explaining this to a friend who is the golf chairman at Shinnecock Hills and I suggested that Flynn probably did the same thing ... so we went upstairs to look at the routing map with the prevailing winds in mind, and indeed, none of the bigger bunkers there are upwind from a green.
It wasn't hard to recognize that areas of blowing sand as on the 13th hole at Pacific Dunes are more unstable than most and will cause more problems -- but they are also more exciting because most golf courses wouldn't dare deal with them in their raw state, and that is what makes Pacific Dunes different.
Dan H: #16 at Bandon Dunes is a look into the past -- that's what the fourth and thirteenth holes at Pacific looked like before we capped them with sand and irrigated them. And with all that attention, we aren't letting them go back.
As Kalen asked, we do understand that someday a chunk of the fourth green will fall off the cliff and the hole will have to be rebuilt, in a similar fashion to the seventh at Ballybunion. There is room to the left of the dune for a temporary green whenever it happens, which we hope won't be for 20 or 30 years. We debated staying away from the clifftop, but again, the appeal of the hole is having the green that close to the edge ... if there was a 30-foot rumble strip of rough it would last longer before it needed reconstruction, but it wouldn't be as compelling of a golf hole until the cliff eroded as close as it is now.
Philippe: Well stated. Of course, you may have learned that lesson by building your own "first" bunker right in the jet stream of the wind on the 14th at Barnbougle Dunes
