I've been pretty busy lately with actual work and that may be the case for a while.
But I did have time over the past week off and on to get a good rough draft of #4 done. This was surely one of the most famous holes in America at one point in time.
So inviting to the left and so intimidating to the right. It's tough to see here, but there is a "hankerchief" of fairway to the right that you can see between the dunes when you stand on the tee. The fairway over there is decently broad, but you only get a little glimpse of it. Then factor in the hickory driver and the whipping wind. But with those caveats, even left is no sure thing. I can imagine a lot of players ended up missing the left fairway to the right in the sand and grass. (ignored the warped teeing ground in this one).
View of the shortcut (camera settings shortens the view here)
View from the left fairway after a long drive. Note that I haven't added the 2nd bridge yet. It is the same style as the other.
3rd shot after laying up over hazard. I have the green about 15 feet above fairway level. Over the cross bunker, it continues to climb to the plateau green. Missing over to the left is slightly better than over to the right (due to a bit of a drop off).
Looking backwards from the green. The view from up here would have been really nice. There is a photo from the #12 green and the view looks very similar, so I'm hoping that I guess right on the amount of elevation. There is also one photo of the #4 approach shot and I took that data into account.
Bird's eye view to give perspective.
Comments are always welcome. For this first draft, I couldn't get bogged down with perfection. But now that it is at this stage, it is easy to make changes.
With #4, #8, and #10 drafted, I've gotten some of the hardest holes out of the way. #12 will be the toughest one left. So, I'm hoping that the holes don't take me quite as long going forward. Also, the more holes that I do, the more the land gets built up and there isn't as much peripheral work to do.