This thread is interesting... It gets me thinking of the holes at a local course. The course is tightly wooded and uses doglegs to create par 4's in the 450-500' range. There are a few that use less of a harsh dogleg and reward a great shot with a throw in eagle opportunity (think hitting a small gap after your drive, 120-150 from pin). These ones really play as fun holes, you can relieve some pressure off your upshot by taking a big tee shot.
Then there are the horseshoe shaped fairway and the "L" shaped fairway (where you would tee from the lower, more right end of the "L"). They play almost completely different, but are equally as boring to play. The horseshoe fairway takes a hyzer with a putter, perhaps a midrange, anything longer means trouble. The upshot from there is fairly routine, there are two quite large gaps to hit at the 150' range. Easy birdie, no way to eagle it without a throw in, and even the pars can feel easy after hitting a tree on a drive or upshot. Not fun.
The L shaped fairway plays quite a bit more difficult (and its quite difficult to explain, so I made a crudely drawn diagram here:
http://imgur.com/6EM6TH0) It looks like a solid par 3 hole from the kink in the fairway from one certain spot. The difficulty in getting to the landing zone off the tee is high, where you would have an opportunity to make a great shot to get in the circle for birdie. Low branches obstruct the high turnover (rhbh) off the tee. A right handed sidearm generally fades too early and requires an extra shot to pitch into the landing zone for an upshot. Its difficult to get enough penetration off the tee to see a good birdie look, many good shots end up requiring a pitch out/up type shot to get into good position to shoot the gap without obstructions. The landing zone is littered with trees in two areas. One where shots land and one where ensuing shots must pass by. If you have a shot good enough to hit the landing zone you may or may not have the opportunity to have full range of motion and also have a reasonable line to the pin.
This hole seems to have the opposite problem as the horseshoe--The teeshot to the ideal spot on the landing zone is luck based, the only birdies come from wild upshots or drives through the woods--not the intended line the designer was thinking. Two mediocre putter shots usually reward the same as hitting a more difficult shot off the tee.
For the purpose of the discussion, removing the obstructing branches only slightly eases the problem. Seems to be that where the fairway bends to the right, the trees that define the far edge of the fairway prevent most shots from reaching the desirable part of the landing zone (along the far edge in line with the gap). Most shots fall to the short right side of the landing zone where making any shot other than a pitch to or through the gap are dangerous or impossible.
Anybody have holes similar to this around them? What are your opinions on par 4's similar to these where theres almost no risk/reward? On one hand, its a measure of a players ability to string together 3 accurate mid range type shots. On the other, in my opinion, its just not as fun to play, and players score separation on the hole stems from going way over par rather than a stellar or above average shot being awarded birdie.
