Here is what I think happened at Yale. After Macdonald and Raynor designed the course with only a rear section putting surface, someone with the authority to make changes decided to convert the designed approach into a putting surface. I do not think Raynor was there when this was approved, and I don't think they asked his permission. I think "The Committee" ordered the change, perhaps before the course was opened for play. Banks had already written his explanation of how the hole should be played. I think CBM would have been totally against such a change. But the course was extremely expensive to build from the outset ($450,000 in 1925 dollars), and Yale supported that cost. If the Committee wanted the front section to be finished as putting surface, what architect would raise a fuss?
So Patrick, I'll grant you that they threw some charcoal under the approach and mowed the grass close. But I won't accept that Macdonald, Raynor or Banks were part of this drastic change to the Biarritz design.
Biarritz holes have been criticized from the outset, and were called Macdonald's Folly. The holes have been DRASTICALLY changed over the years. At my home course, the first thing that happened during WW II was the elimination of the front bunkers that guarded the approach. (Tillinghast recommended this as part of his PGA-sponsored tour, and aerial photos indicate that one one bunker was taken out in the 30's.) Then William Gordon came in 1960, filled in the swale, and pinched the rear greenside bunkers to make it play like a typical RTJ long par 3.
Biarritz holes look weird. Form a committee with ten random golfers with the power to make changes to a MacRaynor, and I'll bet a thousand dollars to a dollar that the first hole they touch is the Biarritz. They'll either remove the front bunkers and make it look and play like a "normal" long par three, or they will convert the front section to a putting surface, especially if they can create a cool shot like the one over Greist Pond. That is what Committees do. Patrick knows that, he hates Committees for that reason. They don't give a rats ass about the design intent of the original architect. They are powerful men, with the power to make decisions, and they damn well will make decisions. That is what committees do.
So this entire thread is about what happened to two Biarritz holes. It is about how the Biarritz hole at St. Louis came to be incorrectly named a double plateau (which I've come to think is a cute, funny, historical mistake,) and how the front section at Yale came to be maintained as putting surface. But there has not been one iota of evidence that Macdonald or Raynor changed their design intent. Banks CLEARLY described the design intent of the hole, and he was at Raynor's side when he hole was designed. Let me now when someone comes up something that contradicts that. And the charcoal layer is not enough, Patrick. Show us something thats proves Macdonald or Raynor authorized the change.