I had the pleasure of playing NSWGC recently for the first time since the changes to #5 were made. I approached the tee with gusto but not surprisingly at the critical moment my courage deserted me and a weak, leaky fade made its way to short right of the green. Arriving at my ball, 10 feet ahead of me I was greeted with a knob, probably no more than 2-3 feet high, protruding from the ground in the precise location where I wanted to land my pitch shot. Pitching it on the top would squirt the ball off to the right or left, and carrying it would see the ball run on well past the pin position. I opted for the latter and landed the ball just past the protrusion with the ball pulling up 10 feet past the hole. A 2-putt bogey resulted.
I thought it was a deviously simple and elegantly strategic punishment for taking the wimpy line off the tee, would work well with flatish ground and is cost effective. It reminded me of a similarly infuriating knob to the left of #7 at RM East.
I wondered if either or both of these features are original or whether they are courtesy of Tom Doak and team?