Ron,
When this topic comes up (as it seems to frequently) I always revert to George Bahto's excellent Feature Interview linked here:
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/feature-interview/george-bahto-november-2002-2/ . Here is the excerpt on the NGLA Cape hole:
4. Which of the Macdonald hole designs do you think is most misunderstood?
That’s an easy one – the Cape hole.
It has become a strange evolution over time that the present (mis)conception of a Macdonald type Cape hole has come to refer to risk / reward tee-shot over some type hazard – the reward of a successful challenge being a better approach to the green. Remember, I’m talking about the Cape hole in the context of Charles Blair Macdonald ‘inventing’ the strategy, which he did.
That risk/reward drive concept is not what a Macdonald cape holes is about.. You could not have ‘invented’ a diagonal drive over a hazard in the British Isles for certainly there would have been and still are many of them in the British Isles.
The definition of the word ‘cape’ refers to a body of land jutting into a body of water, forming a small peninsula. Macdonald 14th ‘Cape’ green originally jutted into Bulls Head, but was subsequently moved in the late 1920s for two reasons. One was that, downwind, big hitters were attempting to drive the green – C.B. would not have any of that nonsense. The second reason was the necessity of constructing a new access road along the edge of the shoreline. The original road to the clubhouse ran through the middle of the property and it was becoming a problem because of increased traffic. Macdonald moved the14th green further left inland and further down the fairway, then surrounded the green on three sides with sand representing the original concept. Seth Raynor then designed a new access road leading to the new National front gate.
Macdonald / Raynor Cape holes come in a variety of designs. The 14th at Fishers Island, for example, requires a tee-ball that flirts close to the edge of a hazard rather than successfully attempt a carry to gain advantage. The Fishers Island Cape green juts out into wetlands.
The famous Cape hole at Mid-Ocean juts out into Mangrove Bay but there is a lot of vegetation that disguises the look (see drawing pp-236 Scotland’s Gift).
Even greens that seemingly jut out into midair at the edge of a precipice can be considered ‘Cape-style greens” – in an article he wrote about the Yale course, Charles Banks who was there at the time, describes the second green (not the second hole) at Yale ‘as a Cape style green’ – he helped build the course.
The Cape definition that has evolved of the diagonal risk carry will certainly continue to be used but a true cape hole refers to the orientation of the green complex, again, all this in the context of the Macdonald/Raynor architecture.