I understand that the Golden Age architects were not always geniuses. In particular, architects like Ross often built flawed layouts with indifferent golf holes. Yet each of these architects have built an overwhelming number of courses that are worth savoring and, if they have been lost through time, possibly restoring. Thus, restoration seems to be a viable option in many cases. Restorations by folks like Ron Prichard and Gil Hanse will be very faithful to the original plans of architects like Ross and come up with a product that is a major improvement on the previous configuration of the golf course.
The issue arises when an architect decides he can improve on what the original architect built. Things can get very hazy very quickly. Let's compare renovations by Gil Hanse at Country Club of Rochester and the Fazio clan at Oak Hill. In both cases, the architects believed they were "improving" the golf course. Why would an architect make changes to a golf course if he did not feel those changes were improvements? Yet, in one case, the renovation worked well, and, in the other case, the renovation worked very poorly. Hanse performed a very faithful restoration of most holes at Country Club of Rochester. He shifted some fairway bunkering to allow for the modern player, but he also restored several short-carry bunkers that, despite being out of play for the best players, remain factors for the everyday player. Hanse's final product was cohesive and a major improvement on the old golf course. On the other hand, as I and others have stated many times on this site, the Fazio changes at Oak Hill amounted to a hack job. Nevertheless, both architects felt they were improving on the work of other architects.
My question is, if we do not perform full restorations of golf courses, do we lose our standards for the work being done? If an architect is asked to renovate rather than restore, doesn't it open up to all sorts of mutilation of classic architecture?