Tim Bert's thread on PacDunes rivals (so far) George Pazin's thread last year on Oakmont as one of the most insightful and interesting I've read on the discussion board. It prompted some thoughts that I think are better discussed, if the board feels so motivated, on a separate thread rather than taking Tim's thread off on a major tangent.
Of all the things I appreciate about golf architecture and design, routing is the one that boggles my mind. In recent years, I've paid more attention to how an architect routed a course, and can see (sort of) the obvious ways an architect could route a hole around a particular feature, be it a body of water, or natural valley, or natural green setting. But fitting all of that together, into a cohesive 18 holes, is something that resembles art, in my mind.
Several GCA posters (astutely, I think) have suggested the best courses resemble a symphony, with subtle introductions, exhilirating and quiet moments, grand finishes, and flourishes here and there.
Art Fuller's thread shows a map of the PacDunes routing, and what strikes me is how different it is than most course routings. The beginning seems somewhat conventional (vaguely reminiscent of Whistling Straits), in that Doak and Co. start from the far corner of the property and make a beeline for the coast. But at #4, he seems to take an unconventional turn. Instead of heading north up the coast (current #13), he turns abruptly, goes along the coast for just one hole, then zig-zags his way back away from the coast, and ends the front nine not really near the 1st tee (like a conventional out and back front nine). The back nine follows perhaps a bit more traditional path -- although as many have pointed out, it's a quite unconventional nine, with the back-to-back par 3s to begin the round and only two par 4s the entire nine.
I'd can see, looking at the map, a more conventional routing -- with a front nine (in order) of current holes 1, 2, 3, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, followed by a back nine (in order) of current holes 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Yardages of these "conventional" nines wouldn't differ all that much from the current nines -- the front would be 17 yards longer, with the back 17 yards shorter (a nominal two yards per hole, on average). This conventional nine would also, one might argue, have the added virtue of having two of the course's more acclaimed holes (4 and 6) falling on the back nine, with the acclaimed risk/reward #6 in particular playing as the 17th hole, the kind of hole one likes to see near the end of a round for match-play purposes. And it would end strongly, with a 464 yd. par 4. True, the pars of the nines would be quite unconventional -- 37 front, 34 back. But not all that much more unconventional than a back nine with only two par 4s, as exists now.
My questions (perhaps premature, given that Tim's only one-third of the way through his thread) are these: does the current routing of PacDunes flow like a great course should? Does the routing seem as "unconventional" as it does on the map? Would routing PacDunes along the lines of a more conventional way that I've suggested (there may be others) compromise the course?
This isn't meant to be a criticism of the current routing of PacDunes at all; rather, while Tim's thread examines in terrific detail the ins-and-outs of particular holes, I'm also interested in how the whole thing fits together, and flows (for lack of a better word). Thus, an adjunct thread (and the last thing I want to do is deter from frank and interesting discussions of each hole in Tim's thread...)