This neatly ties into the "are you serious about GCA" thread, in my view.
Remember back when DR was being proposed and built. We had a pretty long discussion about JN not seeking out a review of SH, and Lipe coming on here defending the methods and approach to design and construction that their firm had undertaken out there. The suggestion that it was bad form and unwise for JN not to at least have a good look-see at SH was pooh-poohed by Lipe as I remember. Afterall, JN has played all the great courses of the world, and what does he need to see another for... (that was what I got out of those remarks by Lipe).
Then, we were treated with pictures during construction and grow-in, and some of us called into question the wisdom of some obvious features and how they were a departure from some of the lessons learned at SH. (not everything at SH went hunky dory and some stuff needed tweaking as well) But, we were told by Lipe and the developer of DR that everything was under control, and they knew just what they were doing.
All this points to what I termed on the other thread as hubris, to say that because you have all this worldly golf playing experience, there is nothing substantive to learn from one's predecessors. Even if C&C aren't exactly or actually JN's predecessors, they beat him to the sand hills and learned, and enough was written that even JN and his team, including Lipe, might have learned a thing or two about construction, design, extremes of terrain combined with weather, that was encountered in the other seminal sand hills project. If JN and their team could pay respect to learn, they would be better for it, it seems to me. And, even their clients would be better off.
I remember Doak having his Renaissance gathering at SH not too many years before embarking on BallyNeal. I wasn't there, yet I remember the threads on GCA.com about discussions and considerations that those in attendance had about the methods and lessons to be learned from the building of SH. Will TD come on here and say he learned nothing in his attendance and observations of SH then at other visits, that didn't at some point matter in his own masterpiece at BallyNeal.
If I got that right, then is this a small example of the factor of why JN doesn't hit the homerun or even score well, and TD seems to continues to drive runs in? Which archies have a firm understanding of the ODGs, Doak, C&C or JN? Which ones have a reverance for the ODGs? Which ones are driving the great designs now?