:-/
Shinnecock has long been compared to Muirfield as a tough, demanding, test of golf that is ultimately "fair" in its demands without being overly penal.
Certainly one plays most of the front nine and the comparison holds up. In a way, Shinnecock to that point may have been one of the earliest "hard par/easy bogey" courses. While the approach to the stringently uphill ninth might foreshadow what is to come, there is nothing that anyone might call unfair or potentially disastrous to that point.
Then one comes to the roller-coaster 10th and from the largely blind tee shot to the shelf-like green perched high above the fairway to the ungainly right-hand twist in the driving zone which plummets to a bowl below, there is nothing the least bit conventional about it. Trying to hit and hold the green, particularly downwind, is an exercise in futility. I'd love to see what percentage of approaches either go beyond the green (leaving a terrifying downhill chip), or land short and get sucked back 50 yards below.
Where do people here try to position the tee shot to gain advantage on the approach? Do you try to get one down into the valley, or lay up at the top of the hill? Which works under which wind conditions? Any of them?
Then the 11th! SHEESH!! 158 uphill yards of sheer insanity! Is there a more difficult short par three anywhere in the world, besides perhaps the Postage Stamp? Given the small size of the green and the falloffs on each side, is there any preferred place to miss?
After that, the course settles back into something more akin to it's reputation as demanding but fair. Still, it's hard to ever forget that funhouse of horrors through the turn where almost any number is possible to record and where one attempts to walk through on eggshells.