"What makes NGLA unique in this regard is the Mr. Macdonald was so clear and articulate (and publicly so) about what his influences were. But isn't this the exception that proves the rule?"
Peter:
What makes NGLA truly unique probably is what the influences were on Macdonald to build it and which he was pretty clear and articulate about.
However, it seems to me most are not particularly aware of what some of those influences on him really were. They are all contained in an article he claims he penned himself in 1906 in Outing magazine and is reprinted in his "Scotland's Gift Golf" which he published in 1928.
What is most interesting to me to consider about this article and apparently the influences on him regarding golf and architecture don't seem to be only what he may've personally liked, even if he did mention some of that.
In many ways, when it came to his outlook on and approach to golf and golf architecture, certainly as to what he called "ideal", Macdonald really was a "poll-taker", an “opinion-taker” and a "consensus builder" in the context of the "time-tested" respect various holes and courses enjoyed.
It should be noted that those various holes (at NGLA and elsewhere) that became what're known as his named "template" holes were not exactly what he personally may've chosen.
The more personal subjective aspect of what may've appealed to Macdonald architecturally are contained in various features he borrowed from holes abroad that were merely parts of holes that he used sometimes in combination on holes he conceived that were not whole hole templates. Some of these features he identified in his article but perhaps most he did not. He did say, though, that most all of them were contained in the numerous drawings and sketches he made abroad over a period of a few years and a few trips.
The other thing that may've even been the greatest influence on him of all with architecture is an aspect that is not even necessarily physical in a particularly identifiable sense. This one might be called the aspect of "beneficial controversy"----eg something in architecture that is hotly contested over time is something approaching an architectural ideal.
On the other hand, if we really do look back to the time Macdonald generated so much notoriety for and with his NGLA it's pretty hard to miss, whether he fully understood it or not at that early time, he really did "work" this massive dynamic back then over "American" golf and golf on the other side and which was better and why.
Clearly, Macdonald was America's greatest proponent at that time of the excellence or over-all quality of golf abroad compared to over here. There's no question at all that he set out to change that with his NGLA as he definitely said that and wrote that.
There is a far more interesting dynamic in this, however, in my opinion. That is that perhaps in that dynamic of what was better---golf and architecture over there or over here, as the years went by the Americans did depart from Macdonald's ideas and examples of architecture inspired by the other side and they very much went in their own ways stylistically and otherwise with what ultimately became a most identifiable style or perhaps even "principles" that we may fairly label "American architecture.”
It is not lost on me that this is very much able to be documented (Tillinghast’s ideas and statements are perhaps the most indicative of all) and it was something that probably served to depress Macdonald as the years went by until his death in 1939.
But the most interesting thing to me about Macdonald and this entire dynamic, is, as time went by or perhaps even early on he seemed to not only recognize it but somehow to even accept it even if grudgingly. It may've even been that even if he never admitted it, that somewhere in his makeup he might have admired it. He referred to it sort of obliquely early on when he admitted he understood that Americans probably are the world's greatest innovators in all things and even if he truly wanted to transport the golf and architecture over here from abroad he had known and loved, he did recognize that as USGA President Robertson said in 1901; "Nothing stays long in America without being Americanized, and what I would like to see is "American Golf".
I believe the thing that most interests me about C.B. Macdonald in the context of all the foregoing is even if he viewed himself as perhaps the Father of golf and architecture in America or that that was something he should have been even more than he actually became, he realized, and again, maybe early on, that even he would never be able to truly influence and certainly not be able to stand in the way of the spirit of American inventiveness and innovation. I think in a real way he knew, and earlier than we understand, that he would just never be able to stand in the way of or "beat City Hall", as it were!