"Didn't Crump build many different iterations of holes early on? Clearing corridors to get ideas, etc?"
Kyle:
There were a number of interesting iterations on #13-16 that Crump considered but they weren't built even though there was a lot of clearing done to see and consider them.
One was seemingly a most amazing iteration for #14 that I make and measure out to have been about a 240 yard carry to a cape green over water with the green right around where today's 15th fairway begins over the lake. The tee was up somewhere around today's lower tees are on #14. The safe option for that Cape Hole 14th iteration was to play to a fairway to the left basically where the "Nature Walk" is today that is the way golfers get from the 15th tee over the bridge and around to the 15th fairway. The option of playing safe into the fairway left would've made that Cape Hole iteration play about 300 yards.
If one analyzes that land area (and water area) carefully it sure does look to me like that #14 Cape Hole iteration could've been one of the world's most exciting and multi-optional holes in the world. But alas, to do it and to put the green in that area would've screwed up the length of the 15th as the very long par 5 that Crump wanted as his second par 5.
This probably had something to do with the fact that Crump was very much at loose-ends as to what to do with #15 when he died even if the present #14 was already in the process of construction (and the Cape Hole iteration had been given up).
The truth is Crump was still very much considering making #16!! his second par 5 just as it had been in his original routing iteration back in early 1913. He wanted to put the 16th green on the peninsula behind #14 green and that is why his initial plan for #17 was for a longer hole----app. 365-375 instead of the app 325-330 it turned out to be.
However, if he was to be able to make #16 the second par 5 (and he wanted two unreachable "in two" par 5s on that course) he would've had to take the tee for it somewhere up within about 50 yards or less from the 11th green where he once had the tee on his early 1913 #16 iteration.
I guess you can see how this kind of thing makes for a certain amount of confusion as the truth is Crump had basically built himself into something of a box by not finalizing his routing totally before constructing most of the rest of the course and bringing about 14 holes into play.
The truth is Crump's original routing was not using any of the land (basically wetland) within about 250 yards of the 14th hole and 15th tee or even the 13th green. When he went out that far that was when he got into some serious lake construction where and when he apparently dropped some serious money in making those holes and that more formalized lake and the entire waterworks and such that one can see behind the 17th tee.
It makes me fairly nervous to write all this for a number of reasons; not the least reason being this additional information is likely to so confuse Patrick Mucci that it will probably take me another ten years to straighten him out even to some moderate extent! And this is the same man who said above that Pine Valley should call him up and ask for his opinions on this golf course!?! Can you believe that?! Why would they want to do something like that with a man who is that ignorant about the architectural history and evolution of PV?
What is that Biblical admonishment? Something like, "He knows not of what he speaks."