I don't see as much of a similarity as some of you seem to suggest between the awesome photos of Dick Durrance at BallyNeal and those few we have seen at Stone Eagle. I see a more labored and crafted site at Stone Eagle in that the playing area had to be - and is obviously - a highly graded/manufactured effort to make the turfed areas "appear" to be pockets of terrain interludes of naturalistic contouring like one would find natually occuring at a varied topography like BallyNeal.
The contours of fairways and greens surrounds and the greens themselves at BallyNeal (as I understand them) are not merely the prairie sod turned over to reveal what was there, exactly. There is great skill involved in tearing away the original vegitation that was considerably strewn with deep rooted and knarly yucca plants, leaving a pockmarked ground, then using that ripply-rumpled ground to fill in via grading to contour that works in drainage and very interesting surface action for the ball to create a very exciting game. Yet, one doesn't sense the hand of man in that process. It does look like the original prairie - merely turned over.
Stone Eagle has sharp, abrupt and harsh edges of faiway to hardscrabble transition, and the outlying hazards are deep and ominous. It can be no other way in such terrain because they have restraints on how much they can turf and irrigate, etc., between the hardscrabble topograpy. Stone Eagle is a very defined and confined space to play within, and BallyNeal is a vast canvas - nearly endless in beyond the first cut relavancy to the game you are playing. Bally Neal draws you outward bound, and Stone Eagle reigns you in, it seems to me. I see more Black Mesa in Stone Eagle than BallyNeal as a visual template.
But, JK the idea that Doak may be franchising a "look" is an interesting and provocative discussion. I tend to think his new work is site specific, and could change upon the mere request of a client to do something different, or that the land dictates something different. The fact that his team can transition to another "look" very effectively is proven in their restoration work at places like Valley Club, and a course near me, North Shore. Urbina and Hepner and those fellows can effectivley work in whatever "look" you want. I personally would like to see the Royal Melbourne sandbelt look to something that is happening in the Sand Hills, and Dismal River would have been an excellent place to go for that. The rugged natural edged sand/hazard "look" could become the conventional wisdom and expected look out there, and copying it endlessly could be a mistake. But, who is going to go outside the box out there to try something differernt?