Dan,
If you could disclose the RMG course you will be playing soon, perhaps I might know enough about it to intelligently comment.
A capsule for you, though: Bob Graves was born in 1930 in Michigan, and decided not to follow his family career path, which I believe was dentistry. Instead, he gravitated towards landscape architecture, obtaining a degree in that field from Cal in 1953.
He never worked for anyone, only considering an apprenticeship with the late, great landscape architect Thomas Church from San Francisco. That never came about. So, he began to support his young and growing family of three girls and a very, very supportive wife, by slowly establishing a small practice that did residential landscape design, college master planning and the start of some golf work by the early 1960's.
As there were far fewer golf architects in California at the time, competition for work was not what it currently is, which meant that he remained in the Bay Area for the next 30 years working primarily out of Walnut Creek and for a brief time in San Francisco. So, slowly he began to get full 18-hole design commissions to augment the myriad small and large renovation work that came his way. However, not all of his work has aged well and I am most certain that if Bob had much of it to do all over again, he most assuredly would do some things differently.
But what all need to realize is that, just as many here jump on Fazio about "framing" and creating beautiful courses today that are sometimes lacking in "Golden Age Strategy", Bob was a product of a time also. This was a time that stressed utility over beauty and miserly construction and maintenance budgets over grandiose ones. Additionally, as often happens with many young designers, he was working at the behest of owners who requested the kinds of modifications that would help them keep the doors open by lowering costs.
However, it can be said that not all of his projects had severe budgetary constraints and toward the late 1970's and into the 1990's he was given some marvelous sites to work with and excelled, especially, at routing courses. Yet, I must say that a certain look and template could be found on many of his firm's courses, namely shapely greens surrounded by cape and bay bunkers that lended themselves to streamlined maintenance.
Yet, it is interesting to see now, that his design partner of 20 years, Damian Pascuzzo, is moving way beyond the generic style we so often employed years ago as exemplified by his new Woodlands course in the sandy soils of the Nipomo mesa south of San Luis Obispo, California. Another former associate, Mike Stark of Eugene, Oregon, who was with the firm from 1986 until 1994, is currently co-designing (ok, mostly designing) with John Daly a casino course near Corning, California and is doing a type of design that departs from the Graves style if that is what one wants to call it. Also, Robin Nelson, who is a very well-respected golf architect in his own right, worked for Bob early in his career.
As for me, I was with the firm from 1988 until 2000 and, in large part due to the many friendly and educated people I have met through this very web site, am beginning my own journey away from the familiar and into uncharted design waters. None of which is meant to take away from lessons learned while with that firm. As Bill McBride says, it is true that Bob Graves took his responsibilities as a mentor very seriously.
In closing, after fighting several bouts of cancer beginning in the mid-90's he passed away in the early summer of 2002 in Bend, Oregon where he had lived on a large ranch (with his own runway onto which he landed his Cessna 210 centurion and bi-plane Stearman) since around 1990.
Well, you did say you wanted some info on the man...........