Interestingly - #12 on the Old Course at Stonewall is only about 400 yards south and runs the same length and direction on the compass and has a "blind drive".
North Course #12 is radical while Old Course #12 is very traditional yet I am really not sure which hole is better.
I'm not sure, either.
I suppose after I am gone, some genius will write how the difference between the two holes shows my "evolution" as a designer, so I thought this would be a good place to address that: nope.
The Old Course was conceived as a traditional Philly parkland course. The 12th was stuck as being a fairly short par-4, but since you could just barely see the fairway hazards from the tee, I didn't think it made sense to build a hole that was about strategic fairway bunkering . . . and drivable par-4's were not consistent with the style. So, we decided to make it a traditional drive and pitch, with a cross bunker in front and a very small green. I struggled with that, because I knew that some women and seniors would have a hard time holding the green from 125-150 yards, but it's not exactly the first hole in Philadelphia like that, so I went ahead. But you can tell from the little piece of fairway that slips around the cross bunker to the right of the green that I had second thoughts, too.
The great thing about the North Course was that I knew the clients so much better, and they were very open to letting us build something different with the second 18, which I told them would be all about the hole locations on the greens. That little 12th is a great example, but pretty much every green there [except the short 6th and 9th] gives you a chance to get on the correct side of the hole without having to carry a bunker and stop it quickly.
That's not an evolution -- that's always been my preference, but I am willing to make exceptions to my rules. If we had built the first course with greens like the North course, I'd have been just as likely to build the 12th on the Old Course the second time around.