PeterP:
Maybe Dan Wexler meant to say that the paradox of TOC compared to ANGC is just that one has basically remained so much the same for so long while the other is so often changed and that is the essence of the paradox since both are considered to be two of the most famous courses in the world.
I can certainly just call him up and ask him exactly what he meant to say in this vein, but perhaps for starters he also meant that ANGC was carefully designed to reflect that very "strictest of concepts" that is basically the essence of the overall concept of TOC.
I notice that Dan also said in his essay that one of the forgotten points of creating ANGC was to essentially recreate the fundamental architectural concept of TOC in a fruit orchard in Georgia. Right away to most observers that would probably seem either contradictory or counter-intuitive.
But was it really? I don't think so if one truly realizes what both Jones and Mackenzie may've thought to be that thing that Dan Wexler calls "the strictest of concepts."
So who knows what he meant by describing this course and TOC and how they've fared over the years as a paradox.
I think by comparing the two today and what the point of ANGC was originally intended to be that he may mean there are a number of paradoxes involved here.
My particular interest though, is in his remark "the strictest of concepts." This is what I think Jones and Mackenzie felt the original concept for ANGC shared with what they thought should be its basic conceptual prototype-----TOC.
Again, it would be instructive to determine what that strictest of concepts at either TOC or the original ANGC meant to them. Personally, I don't think that's very hard to determine because Jones wrote pretty clearly what it was.
The far more complicated question about ANGC to me is if Jones changed his mind over the years about what ANGC should be at any time? And more complicated still, if he did change his mind, why did he change his mind? I think the answers to those kinds of questions probably involve a whole lot more than just the subject of golf course architecture at ANGC. For starters I think they very much involve Clifford Roberts and Jones' relationship with him on ANGC at any particular point in time. I understand their relationship in the context of ANGC was complex, to say the least.
What most seem not to know is that Jones lent some time and his name to ANGC but Clifford Roberts put his money (he damn near went broke over it) and pretty near his actual life into ANGC!
I think Dan Wexler did a very good job of presenting, and hole by hole, the way ANGC was originally or at any particular time to the way it is now for our architectural and analystical consideration. But if anyone is really interested in how ANGC changed over the years and why I don't think they should be looking to Jones and Mackenzie for all or even most of the answers---they should be looking directly at Clifford Roberts.
It seems to me it is Roberts's ideas and modus operandi all those years for ANGC that the club has been following since he's been gone, not Jones's or Mackenzie's, even if the club has never really admitted that or attempted to make it look that way! And who knows, perhaps that too is just another of the paradoxes.