[David_Elvins]

Sunningdale is in my mind one of the great places in golf with both the New and Old courses offering an unbelievable experience and some great golf architectural lessons.  

My impression on the Old Course from a single visit was a courses that was as good as any for maybe the first 12 holes with a marked drop off in quality coming back to the clubhouse from the 13th tee.  Is this a fair opinion?

My brief thoughts would be:
13 is a relatively simple drop shot par 3 with a fronting bunker, seen more often on municipal courses and rarely on the world's best courses.
14 had some nice second shot bunkering that doesn't really come in to play.
15 looks fantastic and has some understated charm. Looking from the tee it reminded me somewhat of the 16th at Royal Melbourne West but upon closer inspection the green had little strategic interest.  
16 a straight hole with some fancy bunkers
17 a really nice hole and
18 an awkward hole and hard to escape the thought that the last two holes are squashed into a small space with an attempt to maximise their yardage. THis thought maybe compounded by the way other holes on the course seem abit squashed in - 8, 11 green, 13. Whilst none of these features are bad, put them all together and the course possibly lacks the grandness of scale that sets apart the world's best courses.

After being hit over the head with interesting architecture everywhere I looked for the first 30 holes of the day, I struggle to think of much of note in the last 6.  

Is this a fair assessment?  What features did I miss that are inspiring, worthy of study, or that make the game exceptionally interesting?

[Adrian_Stiff]

My take would be yes they are very good.
13 is cracking par 3 played from a variety of different tees that Colt sculpted into the hill, lovely rear swale
14 you might be right that bunkering is a bit out of play now but that's only for good golfers and relevant to lots of holes/courses
15 is slightly weak as a looker IMO, but its a strong hole and perhaps a half par which like 14 and 16 are nice features ending a round
16 is weakened only by the marginal blindness, still has very strong bunkering, very typical Colt, most courses this would be a standout
17 is awesome
18 has the history, the clock, the tree, the bunkering.

There is still a lot of variety in the holes.

So I find it hard to agree yours is fair assessment. If you look at the first 6, again a lot of variety, perhaps 3 is weak hole but in the scheme of things most welcome. 7-12 is the quirky section which Colt took us over the best/toughest land. 11 is not much IMO, I quite like 9 but I could see people not liking it. Sunningdale = a lot of variety for me.

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