Hello,
I think this is an excellent topic and I hope it breeds further discussion/other topic/question...
1. If yes, then...has it been a loss? Where is the loss felt? What about the game's origins (as one sees it); what essential character of the origins has been lost by the "straying?"
2. If no, then... has there been any increased value? What discoveries and positive additions were made by architects NOT straying from the game's origins? (eg. Did Tillinghast's work maintain fidelity to the game's origins, regardless of property, and prove it is the architect understanding of THAT, and NOT the land that inaugurates the enduring quality?)
3. Does this debate matter to the evaluation of contemporary and future work, and its commercial success? Does it point a light or show a problem in stark relief that can be addressed by the industry?
As for my own answer, I agree with the general opinions expressed by SN, JT and TD... My own take:
"No, I don't think American golf architecture strayed too far from the game's origins, at least not the "best" of it. I think American architecture retained, replanted and exploited the fundamentals of the game's origins...still about angles, still about judgement, still about calculation in a changed environment...still about compounding dangers of error and lingering rewards for execution...still about handling fortune.
If it "feels" like it has strayed too far, it is because of the number and variety of American courses - America has like 25 different environments in which to design the game...the games origins in Scotland/UK has three or four. -- This sheer breadth promotes a great number of plain or awkwardly-situated, utilitarian courses intended to advantage a recreational or commercial purpose; they give provincials a chance to go beyond a driving range. But that is understandable; not every ballfield is Wembley Stadium, Fenway Park or the Yale Bowl either.
If anything, american architects (or whatever could be said generally about their "architecture") are observed continually translating the game's origins despite incursions from technology. Those incursions should be the real "culprits" for those who feel a palpable loss from changes in design and conduct of the game from that early time.
Still TD seems correct to say that if there is such a "break" with the games' origins, it is in the work and profound influence of RTJ from the 40s to just recently. He was the one of the first, most strident architectural voices to conceptualize "hard par easy bogey" which really seems an American "medal" departure from the game's "match" origins...he, at greater and greater budgets, freely altered and moved land to create his design, rather than suffer confinement by the land upon his design.
This when the game's origins and first championship eras were played upon courses that were incidental to the land...a complete reversal of philosophy... as the games origins had to follow the places where grasses were, where heather and gorse were not, where sheep had burrowed, where rabbits ran, and where the dunes and swept and rolled. The general environments were the same, but each canvas was different; for RTJ, each canvas was rendered perfectly "flat" first, and then the land was made to shape a conceptual and/or aesthetic purpose.
I observe that the games origins were forged on architecture which exercised little or no control over what the player would see, how he would feel, how he would play, or how much he would enjoy the round and wanted to repeat it in the recreational market. (I suppose GC Architecture REALLY changed from the game's origins once an "architect" imposed any control whatsoever) Still, RTJ has to be, if any, the first significant notorious break with architecture straying from origins...his work is the first to subordinate the fortune of land to a conceptual standard, and elevate the fortune of land to realize an aesthetic standard."
cheers
vk