While the motivations and the evolution of A&C building architecture is interesting in and of itself, I do think real similarities of it to a truly natural looking golf course is pretty tenuous, at best. The reasons are just so obvious, at least to me.
The principles of building architecture as well as its overall purpose is simply too far removed from the principles and purpose of an attempt at golf architecture that's as natural looking as can be---at least that's glaringly so in my opinion.
I think it's necessary to go back to Adam Collin's initial post and particularly focus on paragraphs 2, 3 and 4. They're all extremely well written and evoke real fundamental questions here.
'Man's relationship to Nature'? This is in the context of the sport of golf, not in the context of the utility or even the spiritualness of using or even observing a house or a building. They’re so fundamentally different, at least to me, as to hardly allow comparison.
Tripp Davis says none of use should expect a golf course architect to somehow utilize a natural site (whatever it looks like) without doing anything to change it (without being unrealistic dreamers). Of course that's true and it always has been since the very beginning of golf architecture (which to me is nothing more than Man's manipulation of the earth for the purpose of playing the sport of golf).
Of course, golf architecture, most particularly extremely natural looking golf architecture is an illusion. What's the purpose of the illusion? Simply to make the golfer feel that what he’s looking at and playing on actually is the work of Nature and not man. That's all "hiding the hand of Man" in golf architecture is about. Of course the golfer will know that tees and close-cropped fairways and the slick putting surfaces of greens aren't something Mother Nature created but that's not the point at all--not in the slightest. Max Behr was very right in his essays on "Naturalism" in golf architecture to EXCEPT those things as the "necessities of the game of golf" that never was intended to appear as if Nature made them.
But the golf architect who is best able to create a hole or a whole course that creates the "illusion" for any golfer that all that was done by the architect there was to lay those "necessities of golf" very quietly on the ground for the golfer is the architect who creates the best "illusion". That's all that's necessary to do in truly natural looking golf architecture.
The best example I know of in that actual practice was Alister Mackenzie on the 9th hole of CPC. Thank God we have both before and immediately after photos of that hole. Analyze them very carefully and you will see that all he did there was build a level tee and then he simply laid the grass (fairway and green itself) down on EXACTLY what was there. He did not manipulate a thing there (he did build a bunker within the sandy waste area on the right but no one seems to know why!
).
That hole completely creates the "illusion" for any golfer, or should, that it's completely natural. The reason is obvious---because it is completely natural!!!
But that's not to say that Mackenzie didn't also create just as successful an "illusion" of complete naturalism on some of the other holes he actually did create with his man-made earth-works.
That's really all there is to this, in my opinion. A hole that really is completely as Nature made it, like the 9th at CPC, is so completely different in the context of this discussion on "The Natural" compared to even the best earth material A&C building made by the hand of Man as to just not be able to admit real comparison. The straight lines of the roof and so forth at the very least will never trick some observer into thinking that building was a creation of Nature herself.
The comparison of Natural building architecture such as the A&C movement and natural golf architecture can work to some extent, I suppose, but not to much of and extent, in my opinion. At least not unless someone is trying to claim that a level tee, the grass on a fairway or green is somehow completely similar in this context to the straight beams or the roofline of a house, for instance. But trying to force that comparison is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, in my book.
Raynor architecture, the actual structural part of it, is obvious in its man-made aspect. The structural part of Sand Hill’s man-made architecture is just not so obvious, in my opinion, probably because so much more of it is not man-made.
As well as Raynor architecture may play the fact is the structure of most of its man-made architecture does not fool the sophisticated golfer or golf analyst into thinking it's actually created by Nature but Sand Hills does do that. Raynor architecture shows the "contrast" of what's man-made with what's not. It contrasts the man-made aesthetic with the natural aesthetic (not that that's a bad thing, just a different thing!).
Sand Hills is a far better example of a true "illusion" of Nature, and that's the point---the point of this discussion, I think. Sand Hills does not "contrast" what's man-made with what's natural---it blends together almost totally those two creations---and no wonder--one half of it---the man-made aspect was extremely minimal!
But the point is what if the man-made aspect wasn't minimal at all? What if Coore and Crenshaw actually created the exact picture image of what's now there? That would also successfully complete the "illusion" that it was natural--"The Natural". And that's the point. How necessary all this (The Natural) really is to any golfer is not the point here. That’s an issue and subject for another time.