Tom,
The book you wrote is now more than a few years ago...I cannot remember you ever complimenting any architect/designer (apart from Coore & Co. and others on your family tree) on here and that is your choice. I do not remember you complimenting any new courses either to be honest. If you can point them out then I am sorry but I would guess that there are no more than 5 you have complimented.
Tom, I greatly respect you but honestly, you never seem to compliment anyone, at all...unless they are dead. 
Brian:
Some of that is probably fair, and some not.
I've said very good things about a number of modern courses -- probably the most about Kingsbarns and Chambers Bay, but others as well.
At the same time, when you're talking about the top 50 courses in America or the top 100 courses in the world, I think that most new courses (even most of my own) do not really belong in that discussion, and since that's where all these new courses are being discussed, I come off as being negative toward everything. Context matters there.
But, I would agree that if you talk to anybody that has ever worked for me [or for that matter anyone who has ever been married to me], they will tell you that I'm not free enough with compliments, and that even if something is 99% great, I am likely to be focusing on that last 1%. I've always been that way. It doesn't mean that I don't respect other people's work or appreciate what they do, I just have a very high standard that I'm trying to achieve and I think of everything in those terms. I would guess that the same trait which pisses people off is also partly responsible for some of my courses being thought of so highly, because I don't settle at 96% and throw a party for the crew.
I have tried to correct that tendency the past couple of years by giving my associates more credit publicly on this web site, and on my own web site. (You should compare my web site to Jack Nicklaus' in that regard.) At the same time, I've felt obliged to parcel out credit to my associates, because some of them are better known than others and it is often the case that Jim or Bruce (who are better known) will be credited by someone here for work that was actually done by one of the other guys ... just a couple of days ago somebody gave me and Jim credit for Barnbougle Dunes, even though Jim has still never been to Australia. As you might imagine that could lead to bad office politics, on top of just being wrong ... but to some observers it might seem that I'm taking credit AWAY from Jim or Bruce, even if I'm only trying to be fair to all of them.
As for commenting on other architects in general, I'm in a no-win position. My associates would think (and rightly so) that they've busted their butts for years on my behalf, so I shouldn't be complimenting other guys instead. There was one occasion where I was QUOTED complimenting someone else in a press release for a course that was competing with one of my own ... and my client didn't like that too much. And, frankly, some of the younger guys who I think are the brightest of the bunch have still not had a chance to build a course they can call their own.
Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you read or heard or saw another architect giving a lot of praise, in public, to someone else's course? Bill Coore is one of the nicest people in the world, but I can't really remember him touting someone else's work, with the exception of Pacific Dunes and Barnbougle, and he IS also working for both of those clients. There was that GOLF Magazine piece back a few months ago where several of us were asked to name the best course in the last 25 or 50 years not by ourselves, and we all answered, except for Jack who picked one of his own.
I guess if I'd picked something besides Sand Hills you would like me better, even though it would have been stupid to say anything else.