"There must have been a point in the past when someone who we'd now call a golf architect first thought of himself as golf architect (even if by another name), and who thought consciously of the work he was doing on the ground as a directed activity with a specific goal that could be achieved in an ideal way, or as close to an ideal way as possible."
PeterP:
Would you say, allow or stipulate that it might be possible, reasonable or historically logical given your remark above that that someone may NOT have thought of himself as an architect at the time for a variety of reasons, but given the flow and flux of the history and evolution of architecture, had we been able to tell him at some point in his future or ours, that, YES indeed, it all looks like HE just may've been the very first golf course architect, that at least he may've given it some consideration?
I think that somehow this is the way it worked, and yes, I think our man was Alan Roberston whether he knew it at the time or not.
Macdonald was a man of St. Andrews and there is no way he didn't know this about Alan Roberston, Old Tom Morris and the rest as it is all written in his book. But for some reason he saw things differently at some point and he called himself the first golf architect, as far as he could see. I think there is more to his opinon than just an "over-excersized" ego, and that what he said, and what he was trying to do bears some serious analysis.