Thought I'd give this great tour a bump. Really nice work from Kyle and a shame that these threads all but get lost in cyberspace here on GCA.
I revisited Royal Aberdeen last Saturday afternoon and had a great round there while the entire club was off watching the big football match. We had the course to ourselves. A perfect warm sunny day and views of ships anchored off shore. Very surreal on the day.
I fall in the category that thinks the course is excellent and wouldn't say that the back 9 drops off, if anything it's slightly more playable given the increased width. Sure it lacks the quirky bumps in the fairway of the first few holes but there is in no way a weak hole coming in. Also with those holes often playing into a cross wind or straight into a wind they are tough.
I noticed quite a few changes from my first visit, the main one that jumped out was the change to the green on the 5th hole. The front right part of the green use to fall off hard into that bunker. Only time I've ever putted into a bunker, especially thinking I'd holed my birdie putt only to watch it slowing slip away down into the bunker. I didn't mind it as that could of had more to do with the pin position (or my putt you could say) however, that slight change does increase the pinnable area.
Here is the 5th hole green as discussed above, (at least I hope this is it, trying to sort through he photos and compare to the older shots from Kyle). You can see some big shaping changes.
