Tom Doak,
No, I didn't dismiss your comment because I know you know what you are talking about. As for the other Jeff posting here, I am not quite as sure!
Obviously, I can't do the math for other gca's. In the end, I suspect that they don't get JN for 45 days like you gave at OM but the other time spent by associates is similar, especially if they have a good relationship with the contractors talented people. So, you win on the 45 days over JN and for the rest its an argument of who has more talent in their organization, only to be settled on how much anyone in particular likes the end result.
It is an interesting topic. There is always a business side to gca and you have alluded to it yourself recently, saying that building just one at a time IS impractical in terms of generating enough revenue, interest in your firm, etc. to keep you in the kind of projects you want to do (which right now, like the rest of us, might be any kind of project) Whenever topics like this come up, it seems as if the business side gets used against the most famous gca's, as if Ross, Tillie, Bell and others weren't facing similar problems. For many posters, it seems that if they like a course, then motives are "pure" and if they don't, it was designed by a greedy SOB
Now, have all of us been offered more and less desireable projects and taken some of the less desireable ones? Of cousre. Does JN taking housing courses to make use of his name qualify? Maybe. Does taking on all comers qualify, if there does happen to be a tendency to repeat designs on the least "important" or most benign site? Of course. No question that a firm that has had as many as 55 courses at one time probably gave some more attention than others.
I got the feeling that JN's associates gave Dismal River plenty of attention and tried a lot of new stuff for them. The results have been rebuilt and its not as highly regarded as Sand Hills, so some discussions as to why might be in order, since they had basically the same opportunity. Personally, I think most courses built out there will eventually be compared to the original and found to be no better, and thus, inferior to SH. There is no question that CC and SH was one of the great matches of gca, style, site and owner of all time.