Here are some photos to catch up with my progress.
First of all, the 18th hole. The great photo of the 18th hole shows it after a big part of the green was removed to make room for the 9th tee after the cabanas were put in and the 8th hole was squeezed over.
I'm trying to recreate the original green. However, I don't have great data on the actual contours. For right now, I modeled it after Mackenzie's entry and the plastacine models. My version is still extreme, but doesn't have the 7 foot+ tiers like in the contest entry. I just think that CBM must have dampened them down to fit in with the rest of the course's style.
This is from the teeing ground. The left fairway is very welcoming. The right one is barely visable to the golfer's eye level. The middle fairway is blind and would have been a daring carry because of the way that it is narrow if you barely carry and then expanded from there.
From this elevated angle over the road, it is much easier to see the propositions. If you go left, it pretty much turns it into a par 5. If you go right, you have a really difficult angle to the green, which I'll show. And if you pull off the big carry over the middle, your approach is still difficult, but it is right up the gut and would allow you to bounce a shot on. The prevailing breeze would have been right into your face. In addition to the basic strategy that I just outlined, even strong players would have to shift their strategy depending on the wind and I would suppose the pin placement too.
This is your reward for pulling off the hero shot to the middle fairway. Probably a driving iron, mid iron, or some sort of spoon/ bulldog left. You can bounce it on, but missing left, right, or long is trouble.
Here is the problem with going to the right hand fairway off the tee. This image is zoomed way closer to the hole than you'd actually be- just doing it so that you can see the detail. Also, this pin is the most friendly pin from the right. If the pin were back or right, you couldn't get at it. I would think that most people who went right would have had to try to position their next shot short of the green and then tried to get up and down for par. This is a true 4/5 half par hole with significant risk of disaster. CBM discussed what a good closer this would be in match play and said something like- there is no better hole in the world to give the man who is one down a chance to tie it up.
Here is a decent look at how I shaped the green as a placeholder- using the Mackenzie entry and the plastacine models as my main sources. This view is from behind the green with the 9th tee in the foreground. If I can get better info, I can adapt it.