A few weeks ago I played in a tournament at Emerald Valley in Creswell, Oregon which featured 11-inch cups. Given that it has been highly contested on here, I thought it'd be a good idea to share some of my observations:
1. The round still took 5 hours. I was a little surprised by this, but the actual speed of golf was not improved. Surprisingly it made putts difficult to read, and the majority of putts would be bashed in hopes of hitting the hole, with missed puts going more than 5 feet by. The same amount of time was taken to read putts as would be on a standard golf hole, and the amount of "gimme's" was more limited than expected
2. As mentioned on here several times in debates, ball striking becomes a huge priority. As a 0.6 index, I was hitting the ball really poorly and ended up shooting a 79, while another scratch golfer I know shot 59, going 8 under on the front, hitting the ball particularly well.
3. The larger hole, coupled with a seemingly similar amount of putts, made the game particularly frustrating, both for myself and my playing partners. Part of it is not knowing if an 8-footer should be the equivalent of a 3 foot putt, but when you're looking at that big a target and missing, it makes the game far more frustrating.
4. While short range putting is devalued, putting from 20-30 feet becomes far more important and chipping, particularly with a significant chance of holing out, becomes far more intriguing. Emerald Valley is nothing to be cherished (although there are a few decent holes) and I would be interested to see a larger cups impact on a more interesting golf course.
Ultimately, I felt that it would be a fun thing to do every once in a while, something to spice up golf a bit, but to think that a larger hole will solve any of golfs problems is rather ludicrous.
I'm sure I left things out so I'll be happy to answer questions you guys have.