Given that the green is the ultimate target, shouldn’t it be the most intricate aspect of a design?
Alas, over the past 20 years, man decided to flatten greens while making them very fast and expensive to maintain. Oops – Part I.
Flatter, 'fairer' 
greens allow courses to be stretched and length can be added at will. So, a round takes too long and is too expensive. Oops – Part II.
I would be shocked/surprised if a return visit didn’t yield a 7 for this 5,859 yard course - all its aspects seem right in Tom’s wheelhouse.
To me, Cape Arundel is no longer so much a cult course as a course that plays perfectly. I rarely leave a place without involuntarily ticking through a list of how the course could be better. Not a single thought sprang to mind at Cape Arundel. Bruce, who has worked here for 21 years, declared the course perfect when he visited two weeks after my Memorial Day foray. You might too.
Not many courses flirt with flawless presentation – Friar’s Head, LA North, Somerset Hills, Rock Creek, the list is very, very short and Cape Arundel is on it. It is telling that the Head Professional and Green
Ran,
Fantastic writeup.
I played it 8-9 years ago and immediately elevated it to one of my favorite US courses. Everything about it is perfect.period.
I saddens me that such a place warrants such a writeup, a virtual lobbying effort to be put in its proper place as one of the great places in golf.
The mere suggestion that a return visit by Tom might be required to elevate such a course to a mere"7" (as if such a course could ever be close to being numerically quantified) while SO many vapid asshole traps are routinely rubber stamped as "6's", due to ticking all the right predictable boxes(at massive expense) while providing zero charm or returnability.
Your above comments about greens in general, "conditioning", and setup are spot on.
The fact that we don't see more greens, and better yet pin placements! cut into those slope like the ones featured in your pictures is very bothersome to me-and is a loss of of the great challenges of the game.
I just played 36 holes at Shennecosset on greens rolling about 9ish(which once was fast) and the pins were fantastically varied and often cut into slopes, and the excuses were palpable.
A few days before, I played a highly ranked and GCA favorite with greens running too fast for its design, and the pin placements and putting were decidedly boring.
In a game where perception has driven nearly all change, we've let the "tyranny of the minority" singlehandedly ruin many of the amazing things about golf and classic golf courses.
It's great that a few places have resisted this and restored their original charms.
On a final note, on such a compact , compelling intimate design that screams interest,walkability,charm and enjoyment, it is possible to run around in under 2 hours.......
But why would you.....?