Ran, Donnie
I really pleased you like them
Tandridge is certainly much less well known than Broadstone, which I'd known about for many years but didn't appreciate how good those exposed heath holes are until I saw the photos.
Tandridge does look to be on the hilly/sporty side on the back 9. Possibly too much for some? The new club history book has a modern aerial compared with an older one. I could see that most of the bunkers have shrunk and often if hole had a a cluster of several bunkers then only one or two would remain, but the strategy would be similar. Take the top photo of the 14th as an example, the bottom 4 greenside bunkers are now only 2 and there are no top greenside bunkers.
I guess the bunkers just became too costly to maintain? And I suspect that the flatter holes might suffer the most from losing the visual appeal of the bunkers. British clubs tend not to change courses much unless it saves money (apart from sometimes planting too many trees). So they typically don't ask for much major redesign work. But if a course costs a lot to maintain it's likely to lose some of its original quality too, through bunker filling... I think it's somewhat different in America, for the top private clubs (maintenance cost isn't an issue, but major redesign and fiddling with the original design is).
These are certainly the boldest bunkers I've seen Colt et al build on non-heathland terrain.
Whether the course merits a visit for the discerning, traveling architecture addict from America , I don't know (given the strength of the Surrey courses); I just haven't seen enough photos of holes.
But I'm glad I know it exists, even just for those few holes and their historic value.