Jeff you wrote;
I always saw this as a problem for a green committee chair redesigning one green on a course, or sometimes, one of my newer staff members getting to design their first green. In both cases, they simply try to get too many ideas into one green.....hey maybe with reduced design work these days, maybe even senior architects and principals are getting into this habit.
I think when I finish posting the other two holes you will definetly get that I am possibly or surely guilty of this. Seven years since my last regulation eighteen hole design. Have so many things going through my head looking for reléase and add in the fact that we are no spring chickens, leads to a now or never attitude and I may have went to the extreme in general but not in the over undulating category imo.
Randy, me too, sometimes. I recognize its a human nature problem, a la Plato, who said golf architects need to know thy selves. LOL
Jerry,
Your comment reminds me that I asked all those tour pros I worked with how many distinct double tier greens they liked to see on a course. Two was pretty close, with most preferring 2-3, with a max of 4. One even opined that every two tier green should be different from the others, so one proposed
one front to back (I doubt I would use the high front, low back tier arrangement)
one side to side, a la Pebble Beach 17,
one angled left 30- 45 degrees,
one angled right, 30-45 degrees
If you really wanted you could have the high back two tier green on both a long axis green, and another on an across the line of play axis green, which in my mind would be different enough.
Most pros aren't in favor of three and four tier greens, although they recognize sometimes the ground requires that.
Have told the story of hearing Jack Nicklaus say he likes long, two tier greens on long downwind par 4 holes, so he could chase a lower spin shot up the slope to the back pin. While others disagree, I often try to find such a hole to use one of those.