Let me be a bit more clear -- canyon golf is one of those situations where you must take each site and assess it for what it's worth. Some do work -- many fail.
Doug -- Wolf Creek in Mesquite, NV works quite well in my mind. There are few holes there that are blatantly bad from the sense of location / routing. The only ones I don't like are the 10th and 11th and they are really just average holes and have nothing to do with their location in the canyon where the bulk of the holes are situated. Although, I must add, there will be people who will completely frown and may even revolt at the thought in playing there -- especially when they make the trek to the back tee at #2 and see what they have to do!
I don't doubt purists may find the cart ride at Wolf Creek to be excessive but given my experiences with such sites the ride there wasn't that much of trek between holes. The issue with WC is when you must go downhill on the paths there. They could actually film the next Bond chase scene on those suckers!
My issue with Moorpark is that soooooooo little was thought of regarding how to avoid the UPS AND DOWNS in routing the course. Here you have exhausting rides -- the trek from the 5th green to the 6th on the Creek side nine is truly amazing. I actually thought that no course could exceed Santa Luz (located just outside of SD) for ride time between holes but Moorpark does have its share of such things and maybe even a bit more.
What amazes me is that the design of Moorpark is relatively devoid of any serious effort to contour greens appropriately. The putting surfaces are in tip top shape from a conditioning perspective, however, they have little to mandate your attention when playing approaches. As long as you can handle their speed they have little in terms of real design attributes. Clearly, neighboring Rustic Canyon is light years beyond when one sizes up green complexities.
The issue I have with canyon golf is how designers must handle the inevitable "trade-offs" that seem to happen with so many of these sites. One of biggest pet peeves is how architects routinely design the pro forma downhill par-3 with flanking bunkers. Is this type of hole a mandated item for such sites?
You also have the issue with knowing how to rout the course in order to move uphill without developing holes that go beyond logic or reason.
The broader issue is really in maintaining some consistency in terms of shot values. When you have such abruptness in the land you do have some elements that can get toooooo wild for nearly all players save the ones with the lowest of handicaps. It would be interesting to list canyon golf sites that are well done from a design perspective and may even be somewhat walkable.
TEPaul:
Riviera is not an example of what I am referring to. Many of today's newest courses -- especially in the west -- are on sites that have houses high above in flanking positions with holes set in and through some rolling (and at times outrageous terrain). Riviera was blessed with being situated within one continuous canyon.
Andy L:
I think the Dyes did a better job at Lost Canyons (Sky) although Shadow is simply target golf gone wild. I see
your point about the 18th hole -- David M also loves that hole
-- but Sky seems to avoid the blatantly piss poor holes that can dominate the 19th hole conversations. I liked it but I can understand how others can find such a layout exasperating.
Andy -- I'll give you a better example -- trek over to Norco and play Hidden Valley. I mean there is some serious wild rides and holes there! I played it once and that will likely be my final time there. Ditto the Payne Stewart design that's in Yorba Linda -- Coyote something I recall.