... with Pebble Beach. Torrey was built (or at least routed) in the late 40s, I believe. By that point in time, there were more restrictions in CA on just how much you could play around with those seaside/cliffside areas. The holes just do not take maximum advantage of the coastline in the way Grant/Neville were able to do in 1919 at Pebble.

Plus, TP was built as a muni, and that meant budget concerns both with initial construction and the design for maintenance. Prior to the Rees Jones remodel in the early 2000s, it was pure and simple a moderate golf course for the common man (albeit capitalizing on the views) and not intended to be any kind of great architecture at all. No remodel is ever gonna fix that. Rees Jones himself said he was "not proud" of the work at Torrey. He said he was handcuffed in what he wanted to do by both local regulations and the intrusiveness of Torrey's governing partners.

The topography itself at Torrey is also much simpler than that of Pebble Beach. It's more or less one long gentle sideslope sliding down to the cliffside, punctuated by two canyons that also have pretty gentle slopes (for canyons that is). At Pebble, the clifftop land is much more "wavy". Just think of holes 6, 7, 8, 9 at Pebble -- the intervening cliff on the second at the risk/reward 6th, downhill 7th, 100 foot cliff at the 8th which places you above the green, and the roller coaster 9th. Absolutely nothing like that at Torrey except for the 13th, which terrain is wasted as a long, slogging par-five.

You are right that the golf course at TP South is straightforward. That is a big part of the problem. It's a "pretty good" site with ordinary inland-style holes laid upon it. So much more could have been done there -- and it wasn't, not at any stage of construction or remodel.