My wife has wanted a cat since we met. I'm more of a dog person myself, as I prefer the vapid tail-wagging of an emotionally shallow animal. My wife, on the other hand, was no doubt constantly frustrated by living with two drooling vertebrates whose lives revolve around food, sleep, and mindlessly chasing flying spheroids. When she asked again last week if we could get a cat, I caved.
We went to the Animal Adoption Foundation with our dog in tow. My wife went inside and covered herself in cat hair while the dog and I walked around outside and waited to be summoned for introductions to potential suitors. The dog and I got along equally well with all the cats we were introduced to. We were mostly uninterested in them, considering that we could neither eat them, sleep on them, or chase flying spheroids with them. The cats, on the other hand, had varying reactions to the indifferent dog in the room. Some hissed and some cowered, but one in particular seemed just as disinterested as he was, and perhaps even a little bit friendly. There was just one downside - the winning cat was missing a hind leg after using 7 lives in a bad car accident a few months ago.
We ended up adopting this bobtailed polydactyl tripod and brought her home, where it soon became obvious that she was the perfect cat for a humbugging dog person. She gets around just fine on the missing hind leg, but she doesn't have the firepower to do the things that I detest when it comes to most cats, like jump on counters or people. After three days, I've already decided that I'm perfectly fine with my wife having a cat for the rest of our lives, as long as she never has a cat with more than 3 legs.
Bringing this back to golf architecture: What are some courses with design characteristics that would normally be perceived as flawed, but produce an end result superior to what would have been the case if they had more conventional traits?