My former "home club" (a muni I called home) in Cleveland was Manakiki, a Ross design.
10 and 18 were parallel holes with elevated greens and tees with both fairways well below. The holes were parallel with with a ridge between and trees on both sides of both fairways.
Not only are the tees and greens above the fairways, but also the right and left sides are well above the fairways. Both fairways were really bowls.
This picture shows 10 (left), 11 (bottom, par 3) and 18 (right).
Both fairways tended to be SUPER wet even weeks after the last rain as you can imagine.
I think both are (or were) fine golf holes. 10 especially.
So I understand your question, Mike.
But I blame much of the current sogginess on trees. This is a very wooded course in Cleveland and it is now VERY overgrown. In the clubhouse they have pictures from 1930 and there trees were tiny and many current trees where even there. Which means these two fairways got plenty of sunlight.
Now these two fairways basically only get direct sunlight between 11:00 and 12:45 -- I'm exaggerating, but not by much. The trees are very dense, and very tall. You can see #10 is almost a double dogleg par 4 because the trees on the left are so big and now encroach into the fairway. A tee shot to the left means the green is unreachable due to the trees without hitting a huge draw.
So the question is valid. But I believe the better question is "Should Donald Ross have foreseen untamed tree growth when designing low fairways?"
I know that if the people who run Manakiki (it's owned by the City of Cleveland) cut back 80% of these trees, which they should have long ago) these two fairways would be much, much drier.