I can't add very much, Patrick, but in light of my "the minimum architects owe us" and Thomas' "what if you only hit it 150 yards" threads, I found Tom D's initial observation on this very interesting:
"1) cross bunker 200 yards off the tee, so you don't think about really laying back" (italics mine)
And I wonder: now why would an architect do that?
For the long hitting golfer on a 330 yard hole, that cross bunker is meaningless, and has no impact whatsoever; he's much more likely to be thinking about driving or getting very close to the green than he is about laying back.
For most shorter hitting players, that bunker probably doesn't cause a real/true problem, but it can get in their heads -- and exactly why would an architect want to further disadvantage the shorter hitter?
But most of all, for an average (but let's assume, intelligent) golfer like me and for a once wonderful but now much
older golfer who can still hit it as straight as an arrow but only carries/rolls it out there about 200 yards :
For me, it takes a long iron (and a smart play) out of my hands, on exactly the kind of hole that I could compete straightup against a better player. Without that cross bunker there, I could take a 2 iron off the tee and place it in the fairway and only have a wedge or a 9 iron left -- a very smart choice/approach for someone like me who doesn't trust his woods. Why would the architect take that strategic choice away from me?
And for the older gentlemen who still wants to play from the men's tee but on hole after hole is just managing to get on the green with a chance at par -- here would be a great chance to be on in regulation, except of course that the architect took that chance away too!
My thread has not gotten much traction, perhaps because most assume (as Tom seemed to) that "most architects" meet the bare minimum requirement I suggested. And then at just about the same time you post about a short Par 4 at famed Pebble Beach.....and there is what I'm taking about.
In the name of something, a cross bunker at 200 yards. In the name of what, exactly?
Peter