Mac:
Thanks for sharing these.
Re 14, I think I look at it terms of the mindset of the scratch player (not that I'm scratch). It seems that the hole places a premium on distance off of the tee, and the only real reward is if you do hit the green on your second.
For a player that doesn't hit the ball that long, the hole sounds like it is a three-shotter. There's a choice being made to lay up, but it sounds like its a choice being dictated by necessity, rather than risk/reward. The inability to play a long, running shot into this green takes that option out of play for many.
If anything, it sounds like a hole that doesn't fall in to the traditional par paradigm. Kingsley 15 is another hole of this ilk, but for different reasons, mostly having to do with the size of the green on a longer hole.
On Mike's thoughts, as we discussed, I'm a big fan of doing homework before seeing a new course. I know others like to go in blind without any preconceptions. I brought this up on the thread discussing blind holes, but if I'm visiting a course for only one or two plays without the likelihood of getting back to it any time soon, I'd rather have a base of knowledge to let me enjoy the round and perhaps avoid a few mistakes. I used the 5th hole at Lost Farm as an example, one where knowing the ideal line off of the tee helps a great deal, although it seems counterintuitive when playing the hole for the first time.
Mike focused more on the style of course that was encountered and compared Dismal to Mountain Golf. I find it hard to believe that anyone going out to Mullen was expecting to find a parkland style course.
The Sand Hills/Dismal gentle v. bold comparison seems to make a bit more sense. On my first to Nebraska to play golf, I hit up Wild Horse and Bayside. Wild Horse, which I played first, came across as a seamless design, where the overall style was consistent from start to finish. Bayside started the same way, but when we got to the back nine I had to check myself. It would have been easy to say I don't like this because it is completely different from what I just experienced and from what I was expecting. Instead, I realized I was in for a different type of ride than the front side, and the prior day at WH. It was pretty easy to embrace the transition, as the back nine at Bayside presents some wonderful challenges and is chock full of features and landforms that presented shots that you don't get to experience many other places.
I guess I just don't buy the "I didn't like it because it was different from what I saw yesterday" argument. I can appreciate that it happens, but I think its a pretty short-sighted and narrow approach to comparing and contrasting golf courses. I wouldn't give much credence to anyone that simply said I didn't like Dismal because I was expecting something like Sand Hills. Even worse, I'd think anyone that said I didn't like Dismal because I was expecting to see a flatter more traditional layout was an idiot. You probably just drove through miles of terrain that indicated that that would not be the case, unless of course you arrived in the middle of the night.
In short, I think Mike has a point, but I don't think it necessarily explains all of the early criticism of Dismal.