Donald Ross designed The Sagamore, which opened for business in 1928 The site on the hills/mountains ringing the Lake George is a non-trivial site. It's the Adirondacks. There are big rocks, swamps, and some sharp elevation changes on a property that is comparatively subdued compared to the surrounding terrain.
The routing makes use of the terrain as you might expect: greens are perched on slopes to create bad sides; doglegs play into and against the slope; there's a hogback fairway; there are two seriously blind tee shots over prominent ridges. Remarkably, the green-to-tee transitions are wonderfully short. As a resort course those transitions belie the need for carts, which are de rigeur for a resort course, but actually create a number of awkward "carry your driver to the green" moments.
What I think is most interesting at The Sagamore is how Ross designed the greens, and in particular, used mounds on the green periphery as an essential element to introduce interior contours, specifically ridges, into the greens. This approach is so common on the course, in part I believe because few green sites are sufficient as the ground lies.
Here are two shots of the Par-3 8th The Ross designs call for two plateaus to come into the green from mounds on the right and back. The mounds anchor the features that then blend into the green surface as the dominant green-features:
First, from the tee:
And from behind the tee:
From the tee the mounding obscures the green surface, and creates the unplanned bounce for any shot that doesn't reach the green surface. Hopefully you can get a sense of the mounding in size, too, they have walking scale but are neither towering nor inconsequential.
From behind the green, and you may have to take my word for it, the green undulations extend directly from the mounds into the green interior, and well in, at that. In this case, the flag was placed at the end of a 3-5 channel between two plateaus that came from the mounds in the left and right foreground of the photo from behind the green. FIguring out those plateaus
is the challenge on this green.
Next up the Sagamore 4th. I particularly like this hole as an example of solid architecture. The hole runs along the East property boundary in what is basically a field. This green is not overly interesting, but Ross added a mound in the middle rear of the green, and extended it from it a ridge that bisects the green through about half of the green's length:
Finally from my photo collection is the Sagamore 6th. THe green as seen from about 100 yards presents a receptive view, with two mounds defined back left and right:
From greenside left, the mounds and their transitions into the green become more clear. Back left, back right, and the smaller green from right extend as ridges into the green surface, effectively defining the challenge for any flag placed near them, but also defining the challenge for any ball that lands on the wrong/long side of the green.
While my photos don't show this in great additional detail on the rest of the course, holes where mounds are extended into the green in a prominent way include: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 16, 17, and 18. I was on the wrong side on 11 and 18, and those spines knifing into the green really puzzle play.
The big question to me from this is whether this approach to manufacturing interest in a green is a Ross trait, a golden age trait, an architect 101 skill, or just a local adaptation?