"It got me wondering if some of the landing areas should be intentionally short, so that a player simply runs out of room, or needs to turn over the ball to find the fairway. This would be almost like using length against them."
Ian:
Interesting ideas you have here but I would think this kind of thing could be pretty tricky business in how it gets exactly set up. In that vein every hole is its own set of problems and solutions that way, I'd think.
Actually I saw a perfect example of the problems and solutions with this kind of thing on one of the holes of my course this week.
We just held the Pa State Match Play Championship at GMGC and I saw this happen for the first time on our tenth hole which was redesigned by RTJ. It's a dogleg left but the fairway at the corner cants left to right at the elbow, so drives hit into this area can run hard right and long into rough. But past the dogeg and after the turn it gets flat again although the ball still runs on as the ground cants gently front to back from the drive.
To my surprise these guys are so long now that about half of them attempted to carry the ball right over all the trees at the inside of the dogleg that also contains an OB line. A perfect drive on the right line, unfortunately almost inevitable ended up in the rough through the fairway way past the dogleg.
I think most of them tried it because the hole is downhill and it was very much downwind this week.
My sense was that we need a huge bulge out of fairway area in this part of the hole way out there on the right past the dogleg just to tempt them to get aggressive over the OB and treelined corner when it isn't downwind.
They can see most of that area from the tee and if is was in fairway I think it'd tempt them more which I would encourage.
I think the idea in the context of your example is to tempt them more to get really aggressive with a driver. They have to hit it on a really good line and fly it long to get into that area. If they stray a bit too far left they're OB and if they stray too far right they'll be in trees through the fairway at the elbow.
They could lay much farther back with a utiily club or iron but they have a much longer approach shot over a pond to the green.
So I think the idea on this type of hole with this idea of yours would be to give them more fairway, not less, just to tempt them. They're all kinds of ways an aggressive drive can come to ruin but if they really slot it and hit it solid they are immensely rewarded.
That type of risk/reward balance or "equilibrium" can be pretty tricky stuff to pull off well but it think the idea is to tempt more and not try to shut down that aggressive option from the tee. You want to encourage the aggressive play albeit with real risk, not shut down the option architecturally so they're much less inclined to even try it.