Wayne:
Simply send $4.95 to my home address and I can provide you with the complete Ward lexicon golf dictionary -- no money back if less than satisfied.
Tim:
Yes, in a word. I see Doak now being very conscious in tying all the ends together. For the pursists who fell in love with Pac Dunes I can surely understand their fascination with the place and I can see how Doak spent his initial time with harboring more time an dattention on these types of players. However, I think the closeness of the ocean and the playability of the design to their particular level of play is what makes it so grand for many purists.
It's always interesting when the better players are quizzed and they will generally say they like both Pac Dunes and Pebble Beach but the latter is the better test of golf.
For the stronger better player the design options at Pac Dunes are present on a number of holes but not as complete or thorough as I found at Ballyneal.
I see the evolution of Doak design to fully tie together the complete package. At Ballyneal, I believe he had a better site -- I also see a much more enriched routing that never allows the course to lower itself no matter the wind direction or velocity.
Tim -- I would not couch the Doak movement as "giving greater consideration" but more towards an understanding in his final design on how better players approach playing the game with today's clubs. I think that Doak gained some invaluable info from working with Jack at Sebonack because of the manner by which he approaches his more recent efforts.
Let me attack the "site" aspect of your post. The site alone at Ballyneal wasn't going to create the kind of holes that are there. This idea that holes are just there is closer to Disneyland thinking than reality. One has to see what is possible and how to tie the whole package together. No doubt the Ballyneal site is a very special place. But it took the hand of a craftsman like Doak and his team to bring that to the maximum.
The Doak team routed the course with the understanding in acheiving some sort of balance no matter if you face the more prevailing SW wind or you get the opposite direction during the off-months or during that particular odd day.
Look at how the long par-4's play out. The 2nd, 17th and 18th play in roughly the same direction -- the 6th and 10th go the opposite way and the long 13th is sort of a cross situation. I like the way that was done because it keeps the course playing at a high level.
Tim -- I never downplayed the potential wind gusts at Pac Dunes but if a course hangs its entire hat on wind velocity then its true design is really being bolstered by an unpredictable factor. That's no different than when rough is used as a design crutch.
The aspect of Ballyneal is that even with NO wind the totality of the design is well crafted. Clearly, the wind can blow quite hard at Holyoke as well and when that happens the player needs to make serious adjustments because unlike Pac Dunes the Ballyneal layout is much longer and frankly, IMHO, more tenacious on the requirements off the tee.
Let me also point out that the routing for Pac Dunes follows a general direction -- the holes go either north or south. At Ballyneal, the property takes you to all corners and you will have situations where crosswinds become a major item to deal with when playing.