Sean & Rich,
This is EXACTLY why I made the statement that the problem with this discussion is that neither of our esteemed Toms were DEFINING "Alpinisation" from the perspective of those who lived then, especially as pertains to Tilly.
Sean, you asked, "Why did Tilly call this alpinization? It doesn't much look like the Alps hole at all. Additionally, there is more strategy involved in the Tilly version as a player can avoid a blind shot. At Prestwick blindness cannot be avoided."
The answer is found in your own question where you say, "At Prestwick... "The key to understanding is that Tilly followed, in his OWN WORDS, " the Mid-Surrey scheme of breaking up the fairway and rough into miniature ranges of mountain and valley..."
At this time Tilly and others were imitating MID-SURREY and NOT PRESTWICK!
If you visit the Royal Prestwick web-site you will be treated to a photographic view of each hole. A careful look will show what the written description details, an example of this being of the second hole, "An equally straight long shot is required to avoid the trouble in the form of J H Taylor's 'humps and hollows'."
Taylor designed low humps and moundings throughout the course, and THIS is one of the "Alpinisation" scheme that became imitated over here in the states by Tilly and others.
Humps and hollows... and isn't that what Tilly wrote when he wrote, "The idea of grass hollows and mounds was conceived there [at Shawnee] three years ago, before the alpinisation at Richmond was known..."
Note how he even states that others were trying to take credit for designing with this scheme of alpinisation as being first in the U.S. to do it, but that he laid claim, and quite proudly, to being the first.
Rich, you wrote, "I've never seen pictures of "alpinization" before. Surely they prove that the "golden age" architects were just as capable as the "victorian" ones in creating GCA monstrosities..."
They may be viewed by many today as "monstrosities" but back then, they WEREN'T! Remember the times and the limitations from a machinery standpoint. This scheme of Alpinisation probably came about in an attempt to bring a taste of seaside dunes and mounding into parkland courses. That is why it became popular to imitate it over here, since so many of the courses being constructed at that time were inland, parkland courses.
Just as we recognize how someone who lived in 1880 to 1920 would be astounded and lost if suddenly dropped into our time, I believe that we fail to recognize that despite having a large amount of written records and photographic evidence, the mistakes that many a historian makes is that he/she is constantly assuming that being forward in time means that they should and do have an innate understanding of the times and people he is looking back at.
This discussion would bear that out.
So again I ask, especially after the directions it has now gone in, before one makes pronouncements that a hole has a certain feature or not & discuss/argue vociferously over it that by properly defining the parameters of the thing being discussed/argued a less adversarial exchange might take place.
Then again considering those who discuss things out here, and that includes myself, that might be too much to ask for...