On the other hand...are greens with tremendous undulations....some might even say too severe, any more inspired than the "flat" greens of Harbour Town.
For instance the greens at last weekends matchplay,certainly looked very severe and in my opinion too segemented, too many severe slopes...does that make them more inspiring just because they make the game more difficult....?
Michael,
I haven't played Dove Mtn,but the greens did appear busy and difficult.
I like contouring, but I prefer an overall slope, or several overall slopes so that placement of your previous shot matters.
Those greens looked consistently random on TV and it would appear a one to two yard error in yardage resulted in a variety of outcomes (maybe not the case and I might feel differently if I saw them in person)
Very few people play golf that way(hitting it exact yardages) so it's wasted/no fun concept to me if used repetitively.
Additionally, you can get the same effect for tournament players by selecting certain pins on greens not quite so consistently busy.
As you stated ,difficult doesn't mean inspired, in fact an inspired green could prove quite easy if approached form the proper angle with the proper shot.
To me inspired means a lot of thought goes into how the greens are built/found in relation to where the shots are coming in from,and how much challenge was required on the previous shot to get into that position.
But not always,because that would be repetitive.
Occasionally a great natural feature either in the approach or the green might dictate that the two not match up exactly(but when they do greatness occurs), or the architect may simply introduce a bit of randomness into the green.