Phew! Just read through the entire thread to ensure I didn't repeat anything.
I must say that I didn't find the course to my liking at all, which is a real shame because I can't quite place my finger on why I didn't quite enjoy it as much as I should have. I love links golf, love rugged terrain and am a sucker for blind shots (hellllloooo alps and Himalayas!).
I didn't mind the walks too much, although coming from North Berwick where you practically pick your ball out of the hole and re-tee, the walks between holes were noticeable, but pleasant enough.
The greens were wild, but not in the good way to my eye. However, I couldn't argue that they weren't at least fun!
And the rough wasn't bad - in fact, I lost more balls at Old Mach the day before than I did at Mach Dunes (granted I was wild with the driver at Mach Old).
No, what irked me most about Mach Dunes were the holes themselves. Recalling my round one year later, I can hardly think of more than 7 or 8 holes. I know they are different, but in my mind, it just sort of all blends together in a state of rolling fairways, seemingly random bunker placements, wild green, nice view, repeat...In fact, I couldn't even recall the stretch from 6-8 without looking back on an old review.
The other thing that really made me disappointed was that for all the movement in the fairways, I seemingly always had a flat lie, and could see lots of divots around where my ball finished. These gathering areas were common as the mounds and humps are too severe to allow for side-hill/uphill/downhill lies. I recall smashing a drive on 11 straight down the middle, and ending up in an area with 20 divots around my ball, whereas the rest of the fairway looked nice and baked. It seemed to me, given the tilt of the fairway from right to left, that you either ended up in this collection area, or you ended up off the fairway.
And that is the point I suppose: there are those who praise Mach Dunes for its randomness, but in my mind, the randomness is much less than at many other places, which is sad.
I spoke with a member at Mach before I made the trip out with a fellow GCAer and good friend, and this member told us to skip Mach Dunes. I laughed a bit as I wasn't going to come all that way and skip Mach Dunes. But now I see what he was saying. If I had 100 rounds to play between the old course and the Dunes, I would choose 100 at Mach Old.