"One point I've questioned during this discussion has to do with the opinion expressed that Devereux Emmet was a "Disciple" of C.B. MacDonald and Seth Raynor. Though I'm aware that Emmet was involved with MacDonald during the creation of National Golf Links, I know of no evidence that he was following in the footsteps of MacDonald, nor Raynor. In fact, Emmet was well along in his career before Raynor launched his. As we try to understand the chain of influence in golf course design, we should make sure our attributions are solidly based."
Ed:
I agree with you on this constant "disciple" thing on here. Not to take a thing away from C.B. Macdonald but some of these people on here seem to have gotten a bit too carried away with Macdonald. Perhaps they should beginning checking some timelines and such.
Macdonald himself wrote that before NGLA there were basically three really good courses in America and one of them was GCGC. That was done by Emmet, so maybe Macdonald was just as much a disciple of Emmet's as Emmet was of Macdonald's, if, in fact, either one was even a disciple of the other at all.
Furthermore, there have been some on here who've made a pretty convincing case (supported by historical writing) that in many ways the direction and styles of American architecture purposefully departed from some of the architectural ideas of Macdonald probably beginning in the mid-teens. Others on here appear to have treated that revelation as some kind of architectural heresy.
Thank God for Tillinghast and how constantly and how well he chronicled just about this entire architectural evolution in America!