Tim--
John Raese, one of the designers of Pikewood National is more known for running for the U. S. Senate from West Virginia than as a golf course designer. Dow Finsterwald and I think Johnny Pott were involved in the design. They were looking at trying to emulate some of the features they enjoy the most of their favorite courses.
The course at Pikewood National is simply outstanding. It is a very thorough test of the game, long and quite difficult but I thought there were some really cool holes. Personally, I liked the front which was built later better than the back. The stretch from 3-8 is way cool. The 4th has a "road" hole green set up, 5 has a great green setting, 6 is a dog left where a well played shot gets a sling shot effect that shortens the hole dramatically and the green is REALLY interesting, the 7th is par five with a creek splitting the fairway, and the 8th reminds me of 6 at Sunningdale New. The conditioning is amazing, but not surprising given the relative lack of play, and it plays really firm and fast throughout. I also liked the 11-13 stretch where you saw Ross type features, a nice take on a Redan, and something that looks straight out of the Flynn playbook and yet it all fits together nicely. The shortest tee is 6750 yards, which makes it a bit much for most golfers, but there was nothing there that seemed excessive even though the bluegrass rough was tough. I just like the fact that they just carved the holes out of the forest without a whole lot of foo foo and fluff. It's like, "here it is, go play it." The corridors between tree lines are pretty narrow, but not excessively so. I only visited the woods on my first tee shot.
And for the gca.com crowd, Pikewood is walking only.