I think one of the things that TV does particularly poorly in the case of the Black, is that it fails to capture what actually is beautifully subtle about the place. You have to play it to appreciate, as Matt Ward noted, the really inspired way the course traverses the terrain. And you also have to play it to appreciate how amazing and dramatic the landscape actually is. To me, the closest thing on television that got to the true drama and scale of the Black were the times that you'd look at a player hitting a bunker shot, and the lonely figure of a guy trying to swing a club at a ball was simply dwarfed by the immensity of the hazard around him.
But the "bigness" isn't what finally makes the place so great. The routing is simply a wonder to behold, but you have to play it, and walk across that landscape to get a feel for why it's so wonderful. Tom Huckaby seemed to enjoy my "journey" mode, so let's take a walk from the 4th green down to the 5th tee. You've just walked up a big hill and played one of the great par 5 holes, and now you're looking at this par 4. It's another elevated tee, but it isn't one of those long cart-pathy rides up another hill to get to a downhill shot. The way the land works there allowed Tillinghast to place the 4th green at a high point along a diagonal ridge (which is also what makes the Glacier bunker great, because that's a diagonal hazard, too, so the farther right you want to go, the more bunker you have to carry as you trek up the hill). You walk a short distance down the side of the hill to get to the 5th tee, but it's still a downhill shot into the valley where the fairway sits.
So the tee is oriented subtly toward the tree line on the left side of the hole, with the really dramatic diagonal carry bunker below you, along the right edge of the fairway. It's a cape-ish shot, in that you get to decide how much bunker you want to carry, and the farther right you try to go, the longer it is. Everything is on a diagonal from the tee, the tree line on the left, the bunker, the fairway. But instead of placing the green at the far end of the valley in which the hole sits, Tillinghast routed the hole up the far left side of the valley and onto a ridge that sits atop it. If you actually play the hole, you'll see what a brilliant routing choice this is. It's a one-of-a-kind hole that is extremely difficult, and it makes great use of the movement of the land. You have a hole that really asks you to hit a controlled fade off the tee, and then have to come up with an uphill draw. It's actually quite minimalist, in that everything that makes the hole work comes from the way the hole is positioned on the terrain. The carry bunker really is just a visual assist to help you see what the hole is about.
Now let's get out of US Open mode, and imagine somebody like me playing the hole. Put a 13 or 14 handicap out there. And for God's sake man -- tell them to stay the hell off the back tees! White will do beautifully, thank you very much. I hit my drive, maybe fade it a bit, get it out there in the fairway and I'm feeling pretty damned good. I walk down the hill, enjoy the view, stroll by that fantastic bunker and think about how happy I am to not be in it. Get to my ball, and now I have to hit the fricken ball up that hill. Hopefully, I kept it somewhat right, so the trees don't screw me. But one thing that's nice here -- me the player, not the watcher of the US Open -- is that I know that if I can pull off that long uphill shot, at least I have a fighting chance, because the green is relatively flat, and it's pretty big. And damnit, that makes the course better! I'm just a guy out there challenging a very stern test, and now that I've hit a great power fade that fitted nicely into the diagonal valley, I know that after I hit my brilliant second, I've got a bit of room for error. Believe me, not A LOT of error, but enough for it to feel like Tillinghast cared about my day and not just kicking Sam Snead's ass. That's a good thing in my book.
Lou Duran put it very nicely:
"I guess that I see some of the redemptive qualities in BPB often associated with MacKenzie courses, hitting excellent recoveries to make a par or bogey here and there. This is entirely different than my impressions of WFW, which though lacking water hazards, was punitive in nearly every way."
I think Sean would actually find much more of the "what interests me is subtlety, variety and what I call give em enough rope to hang themselves," kind of thing than he might think. If you play it from the right tees, you can maneuver around the Black without being tortured. And you'll have a chance to hit some shots that will make you feel great when you leave. And you'll probably hit a few of those kind of shots.
Oh, and one other fast note, because I just can't shut up on this topic. Ah, the Black . . . Anyway -- while I was watching the Open and looking at all those shots from above at all those big, stubbornly round-looking greens, I was thinking that the blimp shots just wreck the feel of the place. Because they make the greens look really dull. Now they are definitely not the most clever, Ballynealesque greens in the world. But for the reasons I mentioned previously, that's a plus when you play the golf course. And believe me, if you walk it and play it, you don't experience the greens from the blimp. You'll see that they do have some interest, and you're happy that the level of interest is about exactly what it is. You want to have a chance to make a few putts, because you play golf to have some fun, right? I mean, after you just hit the two best shots of the day onto the green at say, 10 (and it was fricken HARD to get there, OK?), do you really feel the need to have a double-breaker where you have to aim sideways? Hell, no! Thanks for at least giving me a chance, AW. A tip of the cap to ya, sir.