"That 1909 article from Scotland is a good example of the exposure the National project was getting throughout the world of golf."
I don't think there's any doubt at all but that what Macdonald was doing with NGLA got an immense amount of attention and for a number of truly interesting reasons.
Those various OTHER reasons are probably what also need to be presented and discussed on here to do this era and NGLA and even the likes of Myopia (which preceded NGLA by almost ten years) historical justice.
To simply try to say that Macdonald was just this great golf architectural expert at that time unlike no other in America is not to do this era and others who were part of it historical justice.
The attention NGLA got and Macdonald too and very much through his own promotion had perhaps more to do with his contention that golf archtitecture in America was at a pretty miserable state in the over-all. NGLA was promoted and touted by him as an example of not just good golf architecture but how to make golf architecture in America so much better in the over-all. This is part of the reason Macdonald conceived of the idea of a "national" course with a national membership (which he also very much specifically promoted and worked on himself with his regional friends and acquaintenances). Macdonald was very much looking to the future of golf and architecture in America and I can and will provide his own statement to support that fact:
"All this is very true (I'll supply later what he was was referring to as 'very true' but for now he was referring to what was often called back the "The genius of locality") when it was written, but how about to-morrow? The birth of a nation creates a new soul. As we gaze back we will reverence the past, but it is to the future we must look."
What about Herbert Leeds of Myopia who had designed and created a really good American course and architecture almost ten years before NGLA? Was Leeds publicly promoting the future of better golf architecture in America and stating what came before him was rudimentary crap? Not at all---or not that I'm aware of. All Leeds was trying to do is create a really good golf course and architecture for his own club off a pretty basic nine hole course that preceded him and his Myopia efforts that lasted twenty and more years.
Then we all need to look very carefully at the dynamic that existed previous to NGLA with the way golf and architecture was preceived over here by Americans and over there by primarily the Scots and the so-called linksmen. To say that there was national pride and national defensiveness and national promotion from both sides would be a massive UNDERSTATEMENT, that's for sure.
Into this dynamic enter Macdonald in which he basically proclaimed most all golf courses over here to be crap (with his three exceptions of GCGC, Myopia and Chicago GC) he comes up with the novel idea to actually transport over here some really famous holes and their solid and fundamental architectural "principles", and not to just transport their basic architectural "principles" but also their well known names too.
To say this did not create huge interest as well as perhaps an equal amount of confusion and national competitiveness and defensiveness (which already very much existed anyway before Macdonald's idea) would be a massive misreading of the situation and its time.
Confusion and misunderstanding on both sides was certainly evident and we can most certainly read about it all from old news accounts. But of course there was perhaps an equal amount of interest in the idea, which again, was totally novel to that time and which some called visionary it was so novel. It seems what Macdonald did and would continue to do and which he was always so good at was to create an atmosphere of "controversy" (don't forget he did say ultimately that "controversy" may be at the very heart of great golf course architecture!
But the point and question for us, at least for me, is---did Macdonald's ideas for basic architectural "principle" copying from abroad or actual hole and name copying from abroad carry through into the future of American architecture as he may've perceived it or felt it should?
It did to some extent but I doubt it did even close to the way he may've visualized it, and that of course is the real story of the evolution of American golf course architecture apart from and in comparison to Macdonald's so-called "National School" style.
And then there is that question about whether Macdonald was the first over here to understand really good architectural ideas or principles? To say that would be to completely miss the fact of a Herbert Leeds who preceded Macdonald by close to a decade. And not just that but one needs to deal with the question of whether Myopia's architecture looks anything like or plays anything like Macdonald's National School style? Maybe just a little bit but not much, in my opinion, and the reason probably is Leeds preceded Macdonald and his NGLA style ideas.
To me perhaps the most interesting question of all is where Leeds developed his own ideas on golf architecture. I think I can pretty much guarantee one thing----he definitely didn't learn them from one Willie Campbell.
To find that answer truly interesting question (since Leeds seems to be the first to produce something really good over here) one needs to look at Leeds himself, his own life, his other interests and where he had been both previous to and during his creation of Myopia!