Tom Paul, good ?'s (although responding to a ? w/a ? is a bit lawerish
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To the first, I would say more from an aesthic point of view as it seems most of the brasch landforms are aside the holes and hence, not really in play.
It's hard to tell from a photo, to me I have to be standing within the landforms to gain the proper perspective.
2 examples. Whistling Straights and Kingsbarn. With both courses, I could tell from the adjacent land that the landforms were manmade before setting foot on the property. However, once on the course, the, shall we say Terra-forming, was done in such a way that it made you believe (or escape) that reality. To achieve this, both courses had a degree of randomness to the earthforms - not necessarily flowing but rather abrupt in places. I think Gil's work at the Castle Course takes this one step further and carries it into the playing areas.
Fazio's work at Victoria National does the same but you believe those fairway contours and gulches were remnants of the mining operations.
I think it doesn't work where the perimeter is too rugged and the playing areas too tame. That just doesn't happen in nature. See Sand Hills. What you expect is the fairways to be a tamed down versiion of the perimeter but still relect the same character. Perhaps thats why the old links courses are so revered. The equipment didn't exist to tame the site. The quirks were left alone and make the course more coherent in the process (Foxy #14 at Dornach or the ravine holes at Shore Acres). So I think I draw the line at the edge of the fairway. Presurposing that the fairway reflects the characture of the perimeter, a more rugged perimeter lends itself to naturalistic bunkers while a more tame "parklike" perimeter likewise lends itself to more manicured bunker.
Now, how do YOU feel about it?
BCrosby, as I have stated before pertaining to ANGC - just make them all MacK CPGC style and I'd be estatic.