Sat next to the 17th green for a portion of the Sunday round, and found it interesting to see how many players were short. I overheard one player on Saturday saying to his playing partner how he was hitting six-iron into 17, so it "has to be a par-4."
This was just before playing the fifth.
Is it the sign of a good, or at least an interesting hole, that players are already thinking of it more than 10 holes ahead of time?
Have only played one Nicklaus design (Ptarmigan, near Fort Collins, CO), which is not on the order of Castle Pines. From a spectator standpoint, I really enjoyed sitting behind the 10th green and watching how the players handled it. You could play to the left side of the fairway, and a little short, giving you a flat lie and a good look straight down the length of the green, but most players played it 10 yards past the flat part of the fairway, and on the right side, necessitating a second from a downhill lie over the fronting pond. If they missed the fairway to the right, the rough over there was brutal. I watched David Toms hack it out of there perhaps 50 yards into the fairway (although to be fair, Els went for the green from that rough, and just made it over the pond). I thought that there were options and interest in that particular hole.