I was blown away by the contours and undulations of the fairways, right from the start with that incredible first hole. There are so many amazing things to say about the course, that I feel I'm nitpicking a bit by bringing up the flatness or tameness of some of the fairways. I think the 2nd, 7th, 8th and 16th fairways re-used quite a lot of the fairways that were left over from the old layouts of Hackett & O'Haire. Could these holes have been better if these fairways were shaped like many of the other brilliant fairways?
I do think that the 2nd and 7th are great holes, but could they be better?
Donal:
I don't know if the 2nd and 7th could be better. That's all a matter of opinion.
The vast majority of the shaping done to the fairways was to soften features so they would be movable, not to add interest to them, as we started with plenty by grace of Nature. Of the holes you mentioned, we did do some shaping on two:
#2: we added a ridge across the fairway to tie in with the shoulder on the right in the landing area, which the previous course had cut into, leaving a scar. I thought this turned out excellent - the shaping is bumpy enough that it looks like everything else there.
#8: I actually cut away significantly from the left side on the approach to the green, so that you are able to see something of where the left edge is before it falls away to the next hole. Originally it was all above eye level, and you had no idea where the edge of the trouble was. We took all this material to build up the lower tee on #9 and to soften a dip in the fairway on 8. It was actually one of the bigger changes we made, but no one seems to have noticed it.
The other fairways where we did the most softening were #1, 9, 11, 13, 14, 17, and 18. The cuts and fills on 9, 17 and 18 were especially big.