That photo really does the trick for anyone who hasn't seen the hole. Isn't that just the funkiest fairway contour? The fact that it's kind of random really makes it so much more interesting. Bill's strategy does make lots of sense, in that the fairway cut is tight so it would seem pretty improbable for many balls to stop on the slope. But I think John intimated that it can happen occasionally. Mostly what you get down there is the blindness factor.
As for Jeff's comment, I can really understand that. I've played Pasatiempo three times now, and it just continues to get better in my mind every time. There's something intangible about how it all fits together so wonderfully, but it has a really special feeling. Part of it for me is the intimacy -- it isn't anything like a Bethpage Black every-hole-is-its-own-experience type of course -- it's quite the opposite. It's very tightly tucked into the property. But that isn't a negative for me at all, other than the obvious 6 and 7 problem. Those two holes take me out of the flow because of the artificially added trees, but it just can't be helped with today's game. And neither is a bad hole at all, in fact both have many intriguing features, but I certainly do long for a time machine when I get on the 6th tee (actually, I find that shot sort of cool, although really scary looking -- it's proabably from the second shot on 6 through the tee shot on 7 that the course is most compromised).
Tom Doak put it really well in his book on MacKenzie, I think. Doak talks about the way MacKenzie routed the back nine around the natural features, and how brilliantly he uses them in different ways. The uphill and downhill variations, and the way the various barrancas thread through the holes, all in such a compact space. It's really sensational. And the pieces fit together so beautifully.
Here's an example I love: You walk off the aforementioned 14th green, and the tee for 15 sits just right behind it. You turn to the left and there's this lovely little par 3 tucked into a pocket of the property between 13, 14 and 16 tee. That hole is a real gem. Then you walk off that green and have the fabulous view from 16 tee up the steep hill, which can be a bit startling, followed by what I'd call one of the greatest reveals in my golfing experience -- the view of the 16th green as it comes into view while you walk up the hill in the fairway. As I said to a playing partner this last time around who'd never seen the course: "well, that's not something you see every day." If you've never seen the 16th green at Pasatiempo in person, all I can say is that if it was built today, at least half the people who played it would demand a windmill and start screaming "unfair" at the top of their lungs, and bitch and moan for an hour. I might say the same thing about a steady diet of such greens, but this one has to be one of the greatest things I've ever seen on a golf course.
Whoops. I babble. Nice place, that Pasatiempo.