"That's fine Tom, they had differences in design philosophies, mainly in the approach to, not the quality of, Macdonald's product.
Again, my belief is that these fellows already possessed their own ideas, they were not driven to them because of their distaste for CB's work. The very best of them weren't doing anything different that CBM, they too were practicing the same ideal, that of building the very best golf courses they could, ones with zero clunkers. They took their own paths because of their desire to be the best, and as every 'artist' knows, you must travel on a road of your own making to be seen as 'great'.
....but I still think the negative articles aimed at Macdonald had more behind them than simple criticism.
"
JimK:
First of all, I don't feel some of the other American architects who were becoming prominent in the teens and 1920s (or a course or a few of theirs were) necessarily had different design philosophies than Macdonald in the sense of fundamental architectural principles but I think some of them certainly did have quite different ideas and philosophies in a style sense. And I'm not at all aware that any of them had any issues with the quality of Macdonld's (or Raynor's) products.
I belief those other fellows, as you call them, did develop their own ideas and I don't necessarily feel it was in reaction to something Macdonald had done or was doing although they seemed to try to head in a direction in architecture they felt exhibited a more natural blending of natural landforms with what they made than what Macdonald had become known for----eg template copies of holes from abroad.
Sometimes, and with a few architects such as Tillie, the knock on Macdonald's modus operandi (copying holes from abroad) was more the result of the use of or at least the idea of the use of "models" or even the idea of plasticine models that had to be fitted onto the land somehow and for that reason were suspected to not be a natural fit or even a good idea. In my opinion, that was an idea (or a knock) that was more perception than reality (since I'm not aware that Macdonald ever actually did something like that or even tried to or thought about it). Tillie himself used placticine models of golf holes for a time but he did it more in an attempt to show clients or constructors what he wanted done or what he planned to do rather than use it as a copy of something from somewhere else.
Tillie is the only architect I'm aware of who ever criticized in print Macdonald's use of template copies from abroad and as far as I can tell he didn't even write that article until 1939 just after Macdonald died. Reading that article I get the sense it was something of a Tillie eulogy to Macdonald even though he did mention in it that he had some real differences of opinion with Macdonald over the years apparently to do with architecture, perhaps Macdonald's modus operandi (template hole use from abroad) or perhaps the style or semi-engineered look of his architecture (perhaps more of Raynor's who I think too often always was connected to Macdonald even though Macdonald probably had any influence on less that 10% of Raynor's courses) etc.
An architect such as Wilson at Merion however, very definitely began with Macdonald as something of his architectural mentor---ie Wilson and Merion did mention the idea of copying famous holes from abroad or at least the principles and ideas of them that Macdonald advised them about and obviously Wilson (and committee et al) initially attempted to use that idea at Merion East to some limited extent and pretty much just as obviously began to get away from that idea and style in later years as they began to redesign the course. However, I'm not aware that any of them ever said it was in reaction to Macdonald's style. There's little question in my mind that their interest was in more completely blending man-made architecture with the natural character of any particular site or landform (the old adage "to hide the hand of man") and it seems they were aware that Macdonald's (and Raynor's) style was not exactly the best example of that. Mind you, I don't think they ever said his known engineered style was bad architecture at all, just that it was a style they preferred not to copy or follow in the future.
Frankly, I think one of the most interesting things about Merion East (and Wilson et al's style) even initially, is that with only a few limited exceptions (such as the original Alps #10) the Wilson/Flynn et al style at Merion was notably different than Macdonald's style.
I really believe that because I can see it in what they did there. I think that also shows that even though Macdonald certainly did help and advise Merion initially a whole lot more of what he did for them had to do with things other than routing and hole design. I underscore again that the majority of Macdonald's advise to Merion and Wilson had to do with developing reliable agronomy, not architecture, and seemingly a whole lot more.
The style (look) difference is a very important point, in my opinion, because if it didn't exist at all then one could fairly say that their (Wilson, Flynn, Tillie et al) evolving styles wasn't any different than Macdonald/Raynor in look and I think anyone with eyes and an open mind can tell that definitely wasn't and isn't true.