Today I played a course built in the 90s by a well-known architect.
The site was a challenge to say the least. Although there is plenty of acreage, the total elevation change on the property is significant, (360 feet in all...it sits below a ski slope), it was cut out of a forest, and there are any number of steep areas falling into low-lying wetlands.
From a design standpoint, almost every hole was "shelved" out of a sideslope, with the higher side "cut" in a way that falls to an artificially flatter playing area, with the low side falling to oblivion. Almost every hole required some carry over wetland areas, so much so as to account for a course rating of 75.4 (par 71) and slope rating of 149 from the back tees which are under 7000 yards.
Almost every green was fairly large, with very little in the way of internal contour, or slope (in fact, most greens were so artificially constructed as to slope in the opposite direction from the prevailing terrain), clearly to accommodate modern green speeds. I only had one putt today which broke more than a foot, despite the hilly terrain.
The rainy year made it tough to determine if the course always plays as soft as it did today, although the configuration of the holes cut into sideslopes makes it difficult to imagine that there aren't always some drainage problems as water runs from the high points down to the levelled-out fairways and greens.
Although the course has numerous bunkers, most were fairly shallow and were filled with clean, uniform, white sand.
The only thing that differentiated this course in terms of the type of stereotypical jaundiced view we tend to have of modern golf was fairway width, and subsequent tee shot strategy.
Still, despite the fact that the course has a fair number of interesting holes, it was so artificial in appearance, and so generally bland in playability, as to be a dud overall.
I left the course thinking about the fact that if I didn't know who designed it, I would have been unable to guess among 50 modern architects, so routinized were the man-made stylings on each hole.
So, I was left with the question...
On an admittedly tough site, with the type of challenges that I described above, is there a better way?
What kind of things can a talented architect do to negate such difficulties? I was struck by the fact that almost every hole was routed along the sideslopes, with very few holes going strictly up or down hill. While I'm not a big fan of "drop shot" holes, I did think about the fact that Seth Raynor, at Yale and elsewhere, did not shirk from creating fairly severe uphill holes. Those type of holes were completely missing from the course I played today, and I began to wonder if the problem isn't one of modern notions of visibility. In fact, despite the severity of the property, there wasn't a single hole with a blind or even semi-blind shot.
Perhaps not coincidentally, neither was there a hole that stood out as surprising, stimulating, or looking like something that was originally creative or utilizing the natural lay of the land.
Is the answer to not build on such a site? Or, are modern notions of what golf courses are supposed to look and play like restricting the creativity of modern designers?