The courses which are baffling are those where there is a pronounced tilt to the entire property, whether it's on the side of a mountain or just draining to one spot. Your eye tends to want to flatten these places out, so that every putt breaks toward the low point more than it looks. I don't really know what an architect could do to counteract that, if one wanted to.
A good example is Riviera, where the property tilts down the canyon toward the 6th green. I remember having a caddy for my one round there, and I don't think I even tried to read any of the greens myself--I just went on his read all day. I remember marveling at some of the lines he chose for putts--it didn't even look close to that in my eye--but he was right every time.
On a course like that you really have to read putts with what you
know more than what you
see.
I remember the first time I played Pinehurst #2 (before the latest greens re-do) in the North & South Am, and there were a couple of short putts where I
intentionally went against my read because I figured I would get it wrong... Those greens are so raised from their surroundings, that it is hard to use the "lay of the land" in your read.
I really am not trying to be a contrarian, but
Aren't "hard to read greens" a good thing? Isn't one showing skill whence one deciphers them?
I think "hard to read" greens certainly are a good thing, especially if it takes skill to figure them out. That's why I was wondering what, if anything, architects try to do to introduce deception into their greens.
Some greens, however, roll very inconsistently even once the line is figured out, and those aren't quite as fun to putt. I'm certainly not looking for perfection (although I will say that the greens I saw at Sand Hills in late July were the closest I've seen--Crenshaw came back to Austin a week after I was there and said that the greens as he saw them at Sand Hills were
the best that he had ever putted on--think about that for a minute), but I would like to know that if I choose a good line and speed for a putt, that is at least worth watching as it nears the hole...