Mike,
All that matters is the result. You can design strategy all you want, but if the result for a majority of golfers is different from the intention of your design, then the whole point of your design is moot. I judge the strategy of a golf hole by what results it accepts, not what is intended. How many poorly designed "risk/reward" holes have you seen where no one ever went for the risk because the intention was poorly realized? Or vice versa, the risk wasn't a risk and everyone hit the long club no matter what?
Another aspect to this is recovery. Recovery at Old Mac is certainly different than recovery at ATL Athletic. OM may have you playing back to the green, but accepting being out of position A with no real hope of birdie or par. No lost ball, rarely a penalty, still in the hole, albeit at a disadvantage. ATL Ath probably has you just trying to get back to the playing corridor, out of the hole. One's for match play and one's for stroke play. This difference in medal vs. match is a huge factor to designing strategy. But it's still result over intention anyday.
Btw, I wondered why you were being so sour this week when I read some of your posts. Then I remembered that Richt is 9-1 against the trade school on north avenue. Now that's a 10-year program setback!
