Mike,
Knowing a lot of the Doak Gang, I can attest their iron will as sportsmen to the Nth degree. All of them. The same goes for C&C and the Boys. They thrive on diversity and creativity. In fact that might be what they live for, basically devouting their lives to the Sport to produce the very best golf holes. Even the ones that aren't planned on paper. I think there are a lot of clients finally realizing that there is a huge difference between a Fazio course and a Coore & Crenshaw course, or a Rees Jones course and a Tom Doak course and vice vesus, ad infinitum.
Playing the course for the first time with John Kirk, even after being out there a couple of times during construction and never seeing it, John and I had just finished playing the 6th when walking back, the 7th caught my eye--as it's supposed to--and revealed this cool looking downhill and driveable par 4 with bunkers expertly placed. I instantly got a chuckle and cracked a smile knowing this is something that Tom, Eric Iverson or Kyle Franz had to have come up with. It's not so much cross-country golf, it's just golf in it's truest spirit.
The 7th, played as a short par 4, in my opinion the best hole at Stone Eagle, especially in the spirit of true short par 4's or in this case par 3 1/2's. Someone getting par here should feel the same as if they had bogie, or maybe, just feel disappointed that they lost a chance at a birdie. While there are many that will love the view behind them from atop the 7th tee, the unique aspect of looking through the binoculars at almost the entire Coachella Valley; the better, make that much better hole is down below, whose tee is right on that flat spot just left of the 6th green, in fact, there are almost two tees there, and the work perfectly for guarding the shot into the 6th!
There are many other aspects of playing several different holes from different spots on the course. Yesterday, John Fitzpatrick and I talked about it, and John VanderBorght and Ran and I even looked at how the tee shot for the 15th can be played from the 11th fairway. I also found a spot where it looks like Eic or Kyle gently shaped another tee just right of the 14th green, making it blind but soft-flipped sand wedge into 15th green.
Now that's golf!