Mark,
How timely of a post. When I was emailing with Ran during the registration process (I just joined as a Newbie), he asked which UK course surprised me the most (both positively and negatively). I told him that the biggest positive surprises were both Brora and Royal North Devon. Regarding the latter, I wrote this specifically, "Although the crumpled fairway at Westward Ho!'s 6th hole gets much of the attention, I actually fell in love with the course for its flatness and subtleties. I find flat courses in general to be underrated, if not ignored. That's a shame for many reasons--most notably that they distill the game to its essence."
I always sense the purity of timelessness in playing golf on a wide-open flat field and never tire of courses, or individual holes, built on such land. There are, in my opinion, far too few of them. That the heart of the home of golf--the 1st and 18th holes on the Old Course at St. Andrews--is built on such land should tell us something.
In terms of playability, the shot from a dead-flat fairway--like the dead-straight putt on dead-flat ground--can actually be the most challenging. The seeming ease of it always seduces the golfer into getting lazy, and lazy shots (see, e.g., layups on par 5s) are almost always bad shots.
Thanks again for the post,
Benjamin