The green is indeed HUGE and I'm not sure we can tell if that's just because of the lay of the land.
However, could there be another reason for why this green is so big?
I'm just wondering if Mike wanted to give the blind shot a better chance at the green from down the left side of the fairway.
Patrick,
When building the green, I thought about having the green just be the right side of the green, which would be an adequate, although smaller, target. Problem was -- it just didn't have the variety and options available that the entire finished green did, so it became the entire landform and almost 11,000 sq. ft., but with two very different sides and attack modes. All of the basic green surface was intact, with the exception that I broadened and slightly raised the ridge to help shift running approaches around to the right half of the green for those not wanting to fire at it aerially past the bunkers and deep bowl and it works very well for that play.
The comments on the drive are all very good and accurate. Depending on which tee you are playing and the length of your normal drives, the very wide yet undulating fairway presents a number of issues, making it more difficult to choose the best line that will give you visibility and a decent angle of attack for your approach shot. The tee is slightly higher than the green in elevation (5 ft.) but the hole is essentially flat from tee to green along the spine, with 10-15' bowls folding off of each side, providing players with a play that is variably blind but playable.
The green has lots of room to the left and back for "safe" plays away from the bowl and bunkers and deep is often a good play for pins in the back center bowl that flows away from the line of play. Front pins are delicate if you get too fancy and try to get really close, often ending in the bowl to the right, whereas a play a little to the left will often come back down towards the pin or allow for a good approach putt, even though it is downhill.
Give me 200 acres of this type of land and you will have a great golf course -- it is really fine golfing terrain.
Cheers,
Mike