I had the pleasure of playing the Craighead course at Crail yesterday with fellow gca'er Mark Pearce. I'd played the course several times before but not for a number of years. My recollection of the course was that there was some nice holes and some quite individual holes but that the bunker complex on the inside of the dog-leg was over done.
What I had forgotten was how contoured the greens were. Certainly they are more contoured than your average Scottish course and a good bit more varied. The greens were challenging and fun to play to from the "proper" distance and position but I'm not sure how approachable a lot of them would be if you had a mishit or dub off the tee and playing in from further back (the second being a prime example), given that a lot of the approaches weren't receptive to bouncing or running the ball onto the green. On the plus side, missing the greens usually resulted in a challenging and fun shot, possibly more than I can recall playing for a while (I do tend to miss a lot of greens).
I still think the bunkering on the dog-legs as being clunky and at odds to the bunkering round the greens. Often offering no more than the option of playing short or wide. While not what you would call good links turf there is plenty of run on the fairways but the expansive fairway bunker complexes were more reminiscent to what you see in areas of softer conditions where bunkers are set out to catch balls landing in them rather than running into them.
The course was built in the late 1990's and was Gil Hanse's first Scottish design. It's a solid effort given that earth moving seems to have been restricted to tees, bunkers and green complexes however I got the sense that the architect quite hadn't transitioned fully from designing for softer conditions to that of firmer conditions.
For those that know Hanses body of work, where does Craighead sit in the evolution of his design style ?
Niall