"PV doesn't have what people would normally consider a reachable par 5. (I don't get the greatness of the 7th in any event. The 15th is a much better par 5.)
The finish with two shortish par 4's, both with uphill approaches to semi-blind greens, is not ideal."
Bobzee;
To begin with the last first---eg PV's finishing with two shortish par 4s, #18 as of now is most definitely not short anymore even for the longer crowd. At 485 now and a 250 yard forced carry it definitely ain't short anymore. (an ultra long kid like Mike McDermott thinks under some conditions he may be able to reach it with as little as an 8-iron but probably more like a 5-6 iron the rest of the time. And a hole that someone like Mike Mcdermott needs a 5 iron to approach definitely ain't short!
#17 is short and was intended to be so pretty much from the git-go and that hole is truly wonderful for that. It's a great match play swing hole at a crucial time in most matches and was designed for that--somewhat along the dedicated lines of Crump's match play idea for #1 which he kept working on. I know from experience that if you come into #17 with your match on the line you know you pretty much have to birdie that one or you might be done. That hole is just so cool for that. I can't tell you how it makes you feel not so much on the tee because there's nothing much challenging about that but on the approach shot. It's one of those unusual shots and times when you know your shot can't just be good, that it might have to be great! You're standing there with nothing more than a wedge or 9 iron but you know so palpably that it's all come down to that shot right here, right now. Some remarkabl things have happened both ways on that approach shot to #17. It happened to me once in perhaps the most educational match of my life.
By the way, both par 5s at PV were intended to be and designed to not be reachable in two, no way, no how, by anybody--EVER! That's what Crump wanted, no questions asked! I hear you about #7. That's the hole at PV whose challenge, demand and strategy has been most gutted by the distance increase in the last decade or more. And it's the hole at PV which has taken the most criticism for that in recent years. They just added more length to it and so it has gotten back some of it's intended pretty much one dimensional "Shot testing" strategy, but certainly nothing like the way Crump and Tillinghast seemingly intended it to be.
I think it's sort of sad with #7 too because the hole was being turned into much more of an interesting strategy in the end of 1917 and just around that time Crump died. What they were trying to accomplish, though, is right there in the archives loud and clear. I hesitate to suggest that anyone touch PV at this point but I might make an exception on #7, and #6 too. What Crump was going to do on #6 is totally documented, but again, he didn't get to it and then suddenly he was gone, and everything came to a screeching halt for a couple of years.