I notice in Ed's initial post he asks what we think of an architect 'dictating' shot placement vs shot shaping in his design.
I think there is probably room for an architect to "dictate" strategy or apparent strategy occasionally but personally I don't think it should be a general architectural rule or principle, only one possibly offered very occasionally and only for the purpose of variety.
The word or thought of strategic "dictation" makes me nervous. I think there is a lot to be learned by really studying the thoughts and words of those such as Hunter and Behr! When it comes to their ideas on the subject of "strategy" they talk about an architect identifying or creating something that presents the golfer with a sense of "freedom".
I'm most definitely assuming both meant by "freedom" a golfer's sense and interest in some strategy discovered, initiated and accomplished by himself--not something simply one dimensionally presented to him and clearly presented by the architect himself for the golfer to have to notice, adhere to and accomplish (or not).
Max Behr says a few things that are extremely interesting food for thought on this subject;
"But if we look closely, we shall discover that the changes [the architect's work(?)--TEPaul] rarely involve natural hazards. Indeed, the veriest tyro is unconciously aware that golf is a contest with Nature. Thus where he meets her unadorned, unblemished by the hand of man, he meets her without criticism."
Behr says in another article:
"Instead of nature dominating golf, it is now dominated by the mechanical devices of man. This is the unhealthy state to which golf has arrived, and the psychological tendency is to make further inroads upon nature's side of the balance, for once the human mind succeeds in overcoming natural hazards in life it never remains satisfied until it has devised means to do away with them altogether."
Hunter's and particular Behr's thoughts were arrived at and written the the 1920s! But doesn't what they said (and warned against) have an odd and close truth to the evolution of golf architecture since they thought and wrote those things on this subject? They certainly do to me!
Particularly Behr's ideas on the subject seem subliminal, theoretical, maybe almost psychological. How do you suppose he meant for an architect to actually design and carry out what he meant to say? I'm only sure of a couple of things in that context.
The first is that he meant for an architect to use anything natural that was useful for golf and what he could not find that way but still needed should be done in such a way as to hide his creative hand!
And second, and probably more practical, I believe his idea and concept of "line(s) of charm" was one of the specific ways, and one of the best ways, to do it. Essentially, I believe, the really well done concept of "line of charm" allows any golfer to identify and accomplish his own strategy and his own "freedom". Simply setting tee boxes for the spectrum of golfing levels to do the same things and then asking every golfer to identify and adhere to the architect's very creation of those things for the prescribed strategy, and maybe the only reasonable strategy, is not half so interesting or rewarding!
Or at least I think that's exactly what Hunter and Behr meant to say--and those two old guys really fascinate me!