Many of the more modern examples of architecture with width tend to have binary outcomes on either side of the wide fairways. By binary I am referring to short distances from fairway to areas that do not readily lend themselves to recovery shots; e.g. potential lost ball gunch, trees, native, etc.
I believe that this trend in architecture/maintenance meld leads to the unintended consequence of bimodal scoring based on the disparity in expected score for shots that encroach up to and beyond the edges of the fairway. When playing courses like this I find that I still make my 3-5 driver swings that don't do what I want (HDCP index cycles between the mid 3's and mid 5's and I consider myself a pretty good driver). On the standard North Eastern parkland courses my scores tend to be about the types of recoveries I can make either around/over or from within some trees. On the binary types of courses I'm discussing here the scores are dependent on whether my misses are found or not. Based on the potential for penalty strokes I end up with my scores either clustering at or inside of my handicap, or 5+ shots above my handicap.
IMHO far less fun to play
IMHO the best courses, certain holes share their width with other holes, or other naturally or randomly cleared areas, providing social interaction, long views, strategy and yes playability.
Not every hole mind you-holes occasionally running off by themselves into tight or unique corners or areas of the property have their place as well, but 18 holes selfishly and proportionally spreading themselves across a property, consistently providing the same dimensions on both sides for safety and gone, become simply a law of averages or numbers game, rather than periods of soul freeing creativity swing and thought freedom, balanced by intermittant periods of demanding focus, strategy and/or skill.
Those are the courses I want to play, not a large scale 60-80 yard corridor on every hole where one perfectly struck shot is nearly as good as another, and missing the corridor by a yard is a disaster.
Give me variety, options, creativity, freedom and yes even fear induced white knuckles, but don't give me 18 of the same challenges.
IMHO, much of the greatness of Pine Valley individual holes is masked in this presentation, where the frame becomes more important than the painting to most.
I played PV in 1992, when I certainly was much more of an architectural neophyte, but probably at the height of my playing ability.
I remember strictly following my caddie's advice and hitting a series of similar 1 irons, 3 woods and maybe 2-3 drivers.
This was in an era where it was normal to hit a lot of drivers.
I seem to always played better when the shots are dictated to me(see Blairgowrie a week ago), but I rarely enjoy the lack of variety [size=78%]and logical temptation.[/size]