Hi guys,
One thing I wanted to offer to this discussion is a course I used to never talk about...Blind Brook CC in Purchase/Rye Brook NY.
In an evolutionary vein of a place I imagine to be like Chicago GC, Blind Brook has always been an insular, ultra-private place...(I think some of my former reticence was in deference to that) its origins were with some of the game's most crusty patrician figures, but memberships are now mostly deeded through the top stations of corporate and government life. When they don't have a private member outing, 25 golfers represents a crush.
But it was specifically designed by Raynor (1917-18 I believe...no later than 1922) to be a gentler, older fellows golf course. So his answer was to deploy some of the strangest iterations of the "template" holes, that must exist... a 276 yard "Cape" that wraps uphill, around a willow banked pond...a "Short" whose putting surface is blind, set in the top of a volcanic hill, that must carry spectacle bunkers across the volcano's face, to discover a bathtub depression in the center of the green, a Road hole that plays with a magnificent downhill sweep, switchbacking just like one at TOC...A dead straight Alps hole...a 340 yard Punchbowl in which a protusion of pinnable putting surface comprises most of the back side of the gathering bowl...sort of like a Plateau green inside a Punchbowl green complex...
The club is enormously resistant to intrusion and the staff is an able guardian to those desires, but I've got to say if CBM-Raynor-Banks courses are truly great in how enjoyable and stimulating they are and how they reveal fundamental principles of GCA via their study, then Blind Brook is certainly one of the most necessary courses to examine. Jordan Spieth or your Assistant Pro might shoot 56 on it...I don't know...but it possesses some of the most unique iterations of those well-known styles that one will likely ever see.
cheers
vk