I understand that the greens at Old Mac at absolutely enormous and I was wondering if that is considered in a rating or slope or is it simply how difficult it is to hit the greens or how difficult the recovery shots are or how significant are the green contours?
It's all considered. All criteria get 1-10 ratings.
Green Target - how difficult is it to get the approach shot on the green. Enormous surfaces would contribute toward making these numbers low; however, significant contour or tiers would bump it up a number. The green target number effects several other criteria (that is, what one gets for the others starts based on what target is).
Rough and Recovery - how difficult is it to recover around the greens and off the fairways. Highly-contoured greens would mean one number up in target, and thus one number also up in R&R.
Green Surface - how difficult is the putting once on the surface. Speed puts you in a column of figures, then contour gives the exact number. Figuring these are not crazy fast (like the rest at Bandon) but the contours are significant, the numbers will be pretty high.
As for the general comments, back when I used to participate in here a lot, I campaigned quite vociferously for high CR, low slope.. for the exact reasons stated in this thread... challenge the scratch, give the bogey a break. It is a tough trick to pull off. But when it is, it typically translates to FUN.
There's a course in Colorado where this plays out very very very well. Tom Doak would be quite familiar with it. So before he tosses the USGA system under the bus as being different state to state (which they sure TRY not to have happen), well... he ought to at least keep CO in his good graces.
