I was reading Jon Cavalier's excellent photo tour of Old Town Club (disclaimer: my home club!) where he made this observation:
"Maxwell's routing begins a three hole loop to the south of the club house in a Par 4, Par 3, Par 4 arrangement. The members must love this feature. Beginning with the 4th hole, the course meanders up, over and a round various landforms and features such that no two holes play similarly, no part of the walk is too steep, and never is there a hint of boredom."
I am also following the Rustic vs. Pinehurst #2 thread (another disclaimer: played #2 twice this past weekend with a group of GCAers). In that thread Kavanaugh states:
"I don't get the sophistication of having bunkers that run the length of the fairway on both sides of every hole. Greens that offer no options of using internal contours to get the ball close to the hole but reject balls from all four sides thus requiring every shot to be played to the middle of the green. And most importantly zero options when you are within 15 feet of any green surface. You run the ball along the ground or you lose. I'm not saying that it is not great golf, I'm saying that it lacks any real world sophistication for the resort golfer."
As a 13 handicap, with a very high standard deviation in my scores - perhaps the classic "resort golfer" - I do agree that #2 offered me few options on approaches to the green. The turtle back greens of #2 repel any shots near the edges of the greens. Most commonly, the approach was to favor one side or the other, which would feed the ball to the middle. This stands in sharp contrast to Old Town, where different pin locations can allow approach shots to be fed to the hole. Every day is different. It just doesn't feel quite so defensive. I would also believe that Old Town offers more varied options from off the green.
I think that makes Old Town "more fun," which doesn't necessarily mean "better."
Is my observation more a function of skill level, or is there some underlying strategic issue at play here?