Matt and Michael:
Regarding the Fazio changes, I agree that they have done very little good other than attract more major championships. The 15th hole is certainly the worst of the Fazio par threes. It has no options, strategy, or decision-making. It only requires the player to fire away with a mid-iron and hope for the best. The green is the worst of the four Fazio creations and is, like I said, falling into the water. It now requires a grueling walk up to the 16th tee. It is no wonder why Ross never built the green there. My father played the old 15th hole numerous times as a lad, and he remembers it as a great par three from both the original tee short right of the 14th green and the new tee directly to the right of the 14th green.
5 is, in my mind, not a great a hole, but it still presents a certain amount of strategy and interest. 6, while not as bad as 15, absolutely obliterates any sense of flow in the routing. The golfer has to make a round trip of over 300 yards to play a par three that is 175 yards at its maximum. Furthermore, the hole continues on the east-west plain of the front nine holes rather than playing into a crosswind as the original sixth did. The original 6th was a very cool uphill par three in a classic Ross style.
Matt, what do you see as the glaring weaknesses of the East Course outside of the trees and the Fazio holes (which everyone seems to focus on)? The land, as I have said earlier, is absolutely phenomenal. To continue with the comparison to Merion, Oak Hill is blessed because it possesses BOTH the micro features that are so rich at Merion and the great sweeping elevation changes. This allowed Ross, the greatest golf course router of all time, to create a set of holes that are both grand and quaint at the same time. Merion has great variety in the character of the land and the look of the golf holes. But, ultimately, Merion's land features are mostly of the micro variety. Oak Hill certainly does not match up to Oakmont or Winged Foot in the realm of parkland courses--I never stated such, but the routing and property at Oak Hill can certainly compete with those two venerable layouts, no?
Matt, I understand your objections to the tee shot on the 17th. The landing area is significantly overtreed, and it amounts to a hit-and-hope proposition for all but the very best ballstrikers. However, I think you are missing the half-par nature of the hole and the tradeoffs between the grueling tee shot and the thrilling second shot. The hole is only a driver-wedge hole for the very longest hitters, meaning that it still holds its intrigue for most good players. A 4 at 17 feels like a birdie, but a 5 feels like a bogey. Two good shots can yield a 3 or even, as it did for Jay Haas, a 2. The key to the hole's interest is the downhill second shot. If you can hold off the tee, you will be rewarded with a very fun approach shot where the terrain gives the player to hit a running second shot into the green and leave a very good chance at 4. From the 460 yardage, I have a hit a 225 tee shot to the top of the hill and then a 235 3-wood onto the back edge. The hole is much more than a straight uphill death march of a par four.
I still fail to see the 13th as a "long slog." Why must all par fives be reachable in two shots? This like saying that all par fours that are not drivable are uninteresting because they only present "two-shot" scenarios. The demands on the three shots do not result simply from narrow fairways. The second shot is tilted significantly from right to left away from the right fairway bunkers. This means that the player has to hit a very good second shot to reach a good position for the third shot. Otherwise, the golfer will face one of three scenarios. One, he will have a difficult fairway bunker shot. Two, he will be on the left side and close to the green, but he will have to shape his approach to hit the green. Three, he will lay back into the flat short of the bunkers and face an uphill, semi-blind mid-iron approach. While the last is undoubtedly the best of the three options, each will make it very difficult for the golfer to control his approach shot into a green where position is at a premium. Thus, the second shot dares the golfer to challenge the land and the bunkering to gain an advantage. Greg Norman did this successfully at the 2008 Senior PGA Championship. In the final round, Norman hit a very strong 3-wood second over the bunkers and into the bowled fairway some 25 yards short of the green. He had a straightforward up and down for birdie, and it vaulted him into the thick of contest down the home stretch. However, if Norman had failed to execute perfectly on either his perfect 3-wood tee shot (which found a flat lie at the end of the right side of the fairway) or the long second, he would have likely made a five or worse.
The 13th is not only interesting for the longer hitters. As a good player who only drives in the 230-250 range, I will face similar tradeoffs on my second shot at the 13th. No matter how far you hit the ball, you will face decisions at 13 due to the contours of the land, the creek, the bunkering, and, most importantly, the fantastic greensite. The 13th is refreshing because it has stood up against technology, is not reachable in two, yet still presents great variety and options. I will take 13th any day over a 530 par five that the top players reach with a drive and a 5-iron.
Like I said before, the Fazio holes are of great detriment to the overall layout, as are the trees that encroach on playing angles. However, the layout uses the land given in beautiful fashion. The terrain alone creates a tremendous amount of strategy on holes 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, and 17. Finally, the Ross greens exude understated elegance and challenge without being unnatural, unduly severe, or visually intimidating. For me, it is the 18 green complexes at Oak Hill East that provide the primary challenge to the best players in the world. They may not have the steep grades or wild undulations of Oakmont or Winged Foot, but they will continually frustrate the player who places his shots incorrectly on and around the greens.