Jeff, in all fairness this was built for a hotel - a resort course if you will, but I’m not sure that really holds
much water neither. Banks oversaw the construction of the course and he was no softie when it came to undulating greens.
Examples: He built a muni for the Essex County Park Commission now called Hendricks Field (we refer to it as Branch Brook), where I played for about seven years. This was a major gambler’s hangout - Pat Mucci will tell you all about Branch Brook also. Some of the great golfers in NJ used to go there for “action.” This is the course where Joe Louis lost tons (tons!) of his money to the head pro, who was one of the greatest putters I’ve ever seen. He is a true legend in NJ. The greens at Branch Brook were generally slow - unless the pro had a big $$ match going then the speed was up because that would favor him. He and Titanic Thompson were the Minnesota Fats of golf, I would think.
Every type of a match you could imagine. One day it was 100 to 1, the pro vs an low-80 player. I was there - there were about 300 of us watching as the pro almost lost. Pro was ahead by one after the seventh, but he chilli-dipped one from the fringe on eight, losing the hole. Pressure on the ninth was incredible. The player (known as Ballentine Pete - hah!! .... true!!) hits his ball into the right tree tree-line off the ninth as the pro splits the fairway and birdied the short, blind tee-shot, downhill 9th hole.
That place was Runyon-esque - truly. Lots of Cross-country matches - three against two .... we often played 7 and 8 man “cats” (skin games) late in the PM .... all in the same group of course, one tie all tie - that was super fun.
Sorry ..... point is this: the greens on that short-length muni were and still are, full of mounds - the
proverbial “buried elephants” with double and triple breaks.
So because the course was a muni or a “hotel course” does not mean the greens were mundane.
Difficult greens were what they were about.
The Knoll has all sorts of undulations ..... built for an older membership who asked him (Banks) for course “not too hard” - hah! Yeamans Halls original greens had all sort of great thing going on etc ........ as did the original Lookout Mountain greens and most all the rest as well.
So certainly must have Waialae had these undulating greens - this was their trademark.
How non-Raynor were the bunkers at Waialae! Yikes!
What did they give for the present yardage of the course? Did anyone get that?