Matt:
I can't say a thing about BB's #15 because I don't know the hole or the course well at all.
But as to your first point about GAP area players and the difference between them and the tour pros, we around here DO know what the difference is and frankly we know what the difference is a lot better than you do because unlike you we know who all these players are what they've done, can do etc.
But again, you're talking about PV, in my opinion, in a bit too general a sense. Like many of the great designs in the country including Seminole, Shinnecock, Pinehurst, Oakmont etc the spectrum of the course to create difficulty is immense, without going over the top! It's because the designs are remarkably sophisticated, but particularly the greens of Pine Valley.
Because they are what they are the difference between the greens at 9 compared to 11 is an increase of speed by a bit over 20% but when you take the greens from 9 to 11 you're increasing the difficulty of scoring on that course even for very good players by at least five times!! And by increasing the speed by that amount you're not taking the course or the greens over the top either. However, if you stepped it up on more foot to 12--boom!!--almost every hole can be almost unplayable!!
That's one thing and the second and more important factor for GAP players or even tour players is PV is a course that takes enormous amounts of experience to play well by understanding how to minimize errors--maybe one of the highest experience factor course in the entire world.
Probably the best single example of that is the Sunday Crump Cup pin on #1 that wasn't used for the Philly Open. Sure, if they used it at the Open the caddies would have explained to the players what the danger was but I guarantee even explaining it those players who hadn't ever experienced it would not really help them fully understand it!
And there's just so much of that kind of thing on that course at that particular set up and speed--and the interesting thing is it was not over the top.
Many of those players were hitting real quality shots but making ever so slight errors in judgement on the management side and it would inevitably cost them in strokes! I could tell by looking at those players and their reactions--they were doing what they meant to do many times and were amazed that it didn't work and sometimes REALLY didn't work! That's simply the very slim margins for error and understanding them and where they are!
A good player can look at the course and those greens real hard and sort of understand and the Pine Valley caddies will tell them but still strange things can happen that you wouldn't expect (at those speed--that again are not over the top!) unless you have real experience on that course.
Not all that long ago they held a competition at Pine Valley between the best Met amateurs and the best GAP amateurs and the GAP amateurs absolutely crucified the MET players who were probably just as good as the GAP players on any other course!
Why did that happen? Because the GAP loaded their team up with some very good GAP players that were almost all members of PV. The experience factor alone basically blew away the Met players.
It was not lost on any of us from around here before the tournament that Chris Lange a good GAP amateur who's been around a long time had a real shot at beating the pros on Monday and winning the Philly Open. And sure enough he finished third a single shot out of the playoff. He just knows that course, it's subtelies and sophistication like the back of his hand--nobody has to tell him about it or explain to him what to do and not to do!
Tour players, again, would of course do better there but still they'd have to really manage their games there well with that kind of setup or they'd get hurt score-wise too.
A great course manager and player like Tiger could probably really go low but a player like John Daly whose ball striking, touch, everything else is superb could fail to break 80 at PV in a heartbeat if he failed to think well there!