I think a big part of the challenge of such a book is what to leave out .....??
Pacific Dunes
Tom, could you discuss some of the issues that led to the double green at hole 9?
Sure. [I call it an alternate green, not a double green which is a single green shared by two separate holes.]
The genesis of the hole is as a connector hole: I had to find a way to get to the upper tee for #10, and access from the south was blocked by David Kidd's course being in the way. So, I started with the upper green for #9, and looked back for a place to attack it from. It had to come on the diagonal due to the series of ridges and valleys to the west, and it was less uphill if it came from the northwest, with the tee on a little knob.
I liked that hole a lot, for how the long hitter's tee shot would tend to run away to the left and leave him a blind second shot, requiring him to think about what he wanted to do.
Once we had the fairway cleared of gorse, my eye started being drawn down to the left by all the golfers passing by on the 7th hole at Bandon Dunes, and the thought occurred to me that it would only require a few more sprinkler heads to have an alternate green over there. I was already thinking I wanted to have a lower, back tee for #10 to make the length as different from #11 as possible. When Mr. Keiser came back to check on progress, when we got to the landing area on #9 I asked him which he preferred for a green site, and he pointed left, because he could see it better, even though he was much more of a fan of the upper tee for #10.
I liked the idea of alternate greens, because they would reward different tee shots. With the hole on the right green, you want to hit a shot that holds against the R-L slope and stays up where you can see that green; but with the left green in play, the play from the tee is a big hook that will run down the slope. I might not have chosen that if it was the play all the time, but for a half-time option, it was very appealing. And the idea that I could tie the left green into the lower tee for #10, and the right green into the upper tee for #10, to make the walk easier for both options, was the clincher in deciding to build both.
When we built the lower green there were a couple of gorse bushes we left behind two of the bunkers to make them more frightening -- again, something I was emboldened to do because they would be in play only half the time. But that was too much for Mr. Keiser's tastes and the bushes disappeared after a couple of years. In fact, they stopped using the lower green altogether for a while, before I asked for it to be put back in the rotation.