RC,
My first opportunity to "shape" was the day after a crew party at Long Cove, when Pete Dye and I were the only ones to show up to work the next morning, and Pete wanted to get the fourth green done. So, he threw me on a tractor with a box scraper and started me off. I made a mess for a while, then started to slow down and get something that looked like a green. That was a perfect sandy site, so it was easy earthmoving.
I don't get on the equipment all that often anymore, because there are guys who are faster and better than me on my payroll and on most of the projects we do. But it's still fun, and when I do the shaping myself, I'm sure I get a different product than I would have when I'm directing someone else. There is a certain "flow" to the process and to your train of thought when you're sculpting the earth that is hard to replicate otherwise. [A lot of operators listen to music while they're shaping, but I never do -- I'm thinking about the golf hole.]
The size of dozer we use to finish something depends on the nature of the soil -- a D-4 in sand, but maybe even a D-6 for heavy soils as in Lubbock.
There is a difference between "shaping" and "finishing," and over the years I have come to give proper importance to the latter. Any shaper will tell you that the guy who finishes their work for seeding can make or break what they did on the dozer.