The screen shots are awesome. My wife went out and bought a new VCR to record the event while I was traveling, so I'll watch today. It's a shame they didn't show more of the front nine on TV ... the players actually struggled a bit on the front, before Mahan started making putts and the rest had to chase him, it was kind of like an Olympic bicycle race.
Matt: There are two winds. The summer wind usually comes from the northwest, which is off the left and into you on holes 12 & 15; 13 is straight downwind, and 16-17-18 crosswind from right to left. (I suppose it's a bit of a weakness that those last three holes all play the same direction, but it was sort of inevitable if you wanted to get out to 16 tee. The fingers of land are slightly lower as you move from west to east, so playing a dogleg in that direction wouldn't have worked too well.) The other wind, though, is a southerly ... the cold wind from the Antarctic ... and that's right in your face on those last three holes, and 1-2 as well. As to your question about 15, the only person to reach it in two is Alex Robertson; he uses that big frame well, and he's had a lot of tries at it, and finally made it a couple of weeks before the event.
RJ: The turf blend was almost identical to what we planted at Pacific Dunes, but the soils are WAY different, so it came up primarily Colonial bentgrass and it's been that way ever since. For that reason, it's a bit harder to putt from off the green ... the three pros all tried that on #2, and none of them got down in two, and they all went to their wedges after that. But, fast and firm is NO problem for Cape K.
PS: My kudos to Bruce Hepner, who was lead associate for Cape Kidnappers, and his all-star crew of shapers which included Eric Iverson, Brian Slawnik (who hung out over the cliffs to dig those bunkers on 15), Brian Schneider, Chris Hunt, and Dan Proctor.