I think Mikes photo shows what Anthony is talking about.... With most skyline greens, its not really deceptive, you know exactly where the green ends. I guess an "eternity" green, falls away at the back, so you actually can't see or know how far back the green really extends.
Correct?
Cool concept.... though I am sure accidental in all cases.
Ryan:
It's certainly NOT accidental in all cases. I have done it deliberately fairly often. I almost thought Mike Hogan's picture of Northland was a picture of the 12th hole at Cape Kidnappers, which has the same effect (but into an even bigger background!).
The guy who is the biggest fan of them is Mark Parsinen. Kingsbarns had infinity greens and infinity fairways, too, and I'm told he was counting how many of them they could get at Castle Stuart. He wanted to use them to bring the landmarks away from the course prominently into view and make them feel closer. At the course we were looking at years ago in Cabo, he had a par-3 hole lined up on El Arco, which was maybe ten miles away but looked very close behind the green at just the right elevations ... like the moon looks big when it rises just above the horizon.
Mike Keiser liked those features at Castle Stuart and asked Rod Whitman to make as many of them as he could at Cabot Links, too.
Of course, not every project has a big body of water to employ for the infinity look. But, I still like to set up a few holes per round where the green sits up close to eye level and there is a void behind it for quite a way and then something strong and plain -- a mass of trees, say. This way the green seems to float in the air and it is hard for good players to attack the flag aggressively because they are worried about going over the back. We did that a few times at Sebonack and Mr. Nicklaus did not like it at first [because it had the intended effect] ... he was surprised that we were doing it deliberately.