I find this nugget fascinating - Jim Engh and Mike Strantz designed the same very strangely shaped green within a year of each other, neither of them knowing about or seeing the other's design...why and how?
Here's the facts-Engh's green at #5 at Redlands Mesa (Grand Junction, CO) and Strantz's green at #5 at Tot Hill Farm (North carolina) are virtually identical, although seemingly unique. Both holes are par-5s and the green has two parts...one is a small pod in the front. The back of this has a narrow but steep uphill "ramp" to a larger circular shaped green.
Now Engh never saw Tot Hill and Strantz never saw Redlands, yet the design is too similar AND too unique in golfdom (is that a word?) so I deduce the following:
Both of them LOVE the UK and Ireland and frequently import design elements. I wonder if they played the same course there and brought the idea back. Does anybody know of a green shaped this way in the UK that they both might have played? My best guess would be Ireland or Scotland...
ALso, I think the terrain may have made them realize a two tired green would work...its just I think the similar shapes are too close for coincidence.