The wind is about the only thing we have going for us in Lubbock, Texas, so we've thought a lot about it on that particular design.
What no one has talked about here is designing specific golf shots for the prevailing wind. At Talking Stick, I know that Ben Crenshaw thought a lot about the holes, setting up a green for a fade if the prevailing wind was left-to-right.
We want a couple of holes in Lubbock to feature running approaches, and the only way anyone's going to hit them is in a tailwind, so they are set up to be the longer, downwind holes. The holes into the south wind are better candidates for bunkering in front. However, I've designed one short par-4 downwind to a smallish green with bunkers 90% across the front of the green, to see who can figure out how to make the ball stop quickly downwind.
The wind will blow out of the north or west some days, too.
The other point [which Greg Ramsay alluded to] is that sometimes the topo dictates different things. Sand dunes form along the line of a strong prevailing wind, and if the dune formation is big enough, it's pretty tough to go against the grain. Most of the holes at Pacific Dunes run north and south, because those are the prevailing winds, and there are some 30-foot dunes in the way of east-west holes. The prevailing wind at Barnbougle is west-to-east, so again we're going to have to play a lot of the holes straight with the wind -- but the east-west orientation adds the sun factor.
It's great to talk about "boxing the compass," but I still think you've got to build the best holes the land offers up. Does anyone think they got Royal Troon wrong, and they should have put four east-west holes across the railway in the fields?