Could any man get more credit for design based more on his writings and philosophies than on his ACTUAL design work?
- Well, George Thomas, for one.
What did he contribute to the courses that carry his name in Australia?
- He did the routing for 27 holes at Royal Melbourne, turning it from ordinary to top 10 in the world. He came up with the new 15th at Kingston Heath and the bunkering scheme for it. He re-routed Royal Adelaide significantly. And he laid out the original routing of New South Wales, though it has evolved since then. Those are the four best courses in Australia, apart from anything built in the last ten years.
How much did he do at ANGC and why was Maxwell called in a short time afterwards to fix many things?
- Routing and greens plans, and discussions with Bobby Jones about how to incorporate his ideas. Maxwell was called in because Augusta is never satisfied and because MacKenzie had already passed away. No reason to think they wouldn't have called him; after all they already called his partner.
Would Cypress be so great if Raynor hadn't routed it and Marion Hollins hadn't insisted the 16th be a par 3?
- There's no good answer for this because no one knows Raynor's routing, and you can't say that any architect [other than Raynor, according to legend] would have passed up building a hole on the site of today's 16th.
Would Crystal Downs be such a great course if Maxwell didn't spend 3 years on site building the course after MacKenzie spent only a few days there?
- No. But you could write a similar question for almost any of the top 20 courses in the world.
What courses did he actually spend time at during construction?
- Alwoodley, Moortown, Royal Melbourne (early days), Cypress Point, Pasatiempo.
What courses did he actually put quantifiable work into? Pasatiempo?
- What is "quantifiable work"? There are copies of his routings for at least 50 of his courses, and copies of his green plans for many of the most famous ones. That's not quantifiable?
P.S. I had one semester of agronomy at Cornell.