Thanks (!) for all the encouraging comments and IMs. Here are a few more photographs for consideration.
Below is one of the more visually appealing tee shots on the course, though you won't be able to see your tee ball finish as it hopefully carries well past the brow of the hill. The approach to this 390y dogleg right is one of my favorites as it is to a green that runs from high front right to low back left and just so happens
to line up on the distant 'Ailsa' rock.
This one is the northern most point on the course and it is the green that caps off a 470y beast. That is a natural ravine front left so yes that means there will be plenty of room wide right to work a running hook somewhere near or onto the large putting surface.
Not unlike Bandon Trails, there are several different parts to the property. However, in our case, the sea is in view from all of them and that serves as a natural unifier. Still, we hope to capitalize on the different 'moods' of the land. For instance, right after the green above which is literally on a bluff with a fifty foot drop to a wide beach below, the golfer walks (yes, walks as this is a walking only course) forty-five yards onto the next tee and has the view below that to me has always felt like something you might find in Surrey.
Yes, this is an early photograph of this one shotter being developed and it will obviously be opened up quite a bit more but the point is that the hole has an appealing atmosphere all its own, even without featuring a long water view.
Here is one last construction photo and it too happens to be of a one shotter. I include it in part to show a unique feature of the course: the public board walk that is visible just over the green site and that then wanders down the next hole, a long three shotter. Given Tiger's dominance, I have more or less edged out of playing in front of large groups of spectators. Nonetheless, when pressed to hit a shot in front of people (first tee at The Old Course, hitting recovery shots/putting out on the home green underneath the watchful eyes of members, etc.), there is a certain added element (perhaps theater, perhaps dread) on such occasions. Here too you'll experience that, both via the broad walk for a couple of holes as well as how two of the greens come back to the main clubhouse/hotel.
I was up in Inverness two weeks after Mike Keiser but I can understand why he said, 'I can see the finished course and it is awesome.' Below is a photograph of our architect on the beach below one of the greens, smiling after he heard those words from a man who knows something about building great courses along large bodies of water.
We will have a presentation on Cabot Links in Manhattan on Thursday, November 19th. For those interested in attending, please drop me an email at rmorrissett@cabotlinks.com and I'll be sure you get an invite.
Cheers,