I have done a lot of inspecting, measuring, and comparing to see exactly what changed when they built the cabanas/ boardwalk along the South end of the course.
We all know that the 8th was moved inland and that the 9th tee was also moved.
But I wasn't giving enough thought to what else shifted. It looks like 5-10 yards was lost on the back end of the 7th green. It is hard to tell exactly, but based on the plastacine model, the back of that green originally extended a few yards into what became that cabana structure. The modified green did still have some space after it with that structure in, so the total reduction in the back of that green is what I've been measuring. I am putting a lot of credibility in the plastacine model, because it aligns so perfectly with the rest of the course. Every visible ripple in the fairways seem to be represented in the model identically.
But the most interesting change that appears to have happened when they crammed the holes inland was on the 18th green. That picture that we were marveling at with the big humps toward the back left side was a very modified version of that green. I believe that the original version of the green was as it was on the Plastacine model and drawings of the course.
Version 1: 1916. with my overlay into Google Earth, the green was 21,084 sq feet! (if it ever existed per the model and diagrams)
Version 2: 1926. The aerial from this year is fantastic and it is clear that the green is about 11,400 sq feet. The 9th tee has been moved off the back of the green to make room for a middle iteration of the 8th hole. The boardwalk had not yet been built.
Version 3: 1940 aerial. It appears as though they added a barrier to the back of the green to protect the players on the 9th tee, which had been crammed even closer to the 18th green to make room for the final version of the 8th hole. The 18th green in its final form was only about 7,000 sq feet. So, that cool feature in the green that we see in the photo was definitely not CBM/Raynor, but was sort of the equivalent of what tight courses do when they install a net to protect players on a tee.
But here is the part that I'm not sure of. I'm posting an image below that shows the original diagram for the hole vs the final version of the hole. Note that the cluster of 3 traps to the left of the green (from the perspective of a player hitting their approach) migrated. So, either 1 of 2 things happened: 1) the hole was not built to the plastacine and diagrams only at the green (the rest is identical), or 2) when they crammed in the 9th tee box and borrowed from the back of the green, they moved in those bunkers to keep the same dynamic as the original version, just on a smaller scale. As you can see, if they left them in the original location, they wouldn't serve much purpose and they would lie just at the end of the 9th tee, which would be awkward.
Supporting that theory is one other anomaly. That is that the middle bnker on the front right hand side of the green (from the perspective of a player hitting their approach) also ended up in a different spot than the diagram. It looks like when they shrunk the corridor on the approach, they also moved that trap to allow an approach to bounce in... again to preserve the dynamic of the original hole, but on a smaller scale.
So, unless anyone can convince me otherwise, I'm going to assume that the original hole was built to spec and that they moved the bunkers when they shrunk the green. If I'm wrong, then at least I am preserving MacKenzie's concept.
You can see the manufactured ridge from left to right cut through the original version of the green. That ridge separated the final usable portion of the 18th green from the 9th teeing ground.
I am not showing the entire image of the hole diagram with the aerial, but it really does match up to the foot going all the way back to the tee. Every single detail of the hole matches the diagram except for the ones that I point out above.