Ian:
That's very interesting and certainly wouldn't surprise me with a course like NGLA at that early date and looking closely at what Macdonald was and was probably considered at the time of the beginning of NGLA. Was he at that time considered the "father" of American architecture that some consider him to be today? Of course not!
I'd heard somewhere that Emmett and Travis had been a few of those around NGLA as were some others. This sounds to me at that time of 1907 or so a bit like George Crump of Pine Valley in the beginning with the creation of his course around 1912-13. Of course one sometimes forgets that C. B Macdonald, like Crump, Hugh Wilson, George Thomas and the Fownes of Oakmont were all life-long amateurs in the architectural world and weren't well known in the architectural world primarily because none of them had done much as yet!
So with that in mind I suppose it's logical for some to assume that he must have needed the help and aide of professional architects of his time. That wouldn't explain, of course, his hole concepts and such that he brought from Europe but maybe they helped him figure out where to put them on the land and also with some of the original holes of NGLA. I guess just like Crump 5-6 years after him it was too much for him to figure things out at that time on his own.
Or maybe he just saw some benefit of having some well known architects around and seeking their ideas and collaboration. Macdonald did write a fairly extensive chapter in his book (unlike Crump) about the inception and creation of NGLA.
Is the Travis Society attempting to claim that Travis didn't get the credit for his contribution to NGLA he was due? It should be pointed out that Travis himself wrote in Golf Illustrated (or the American golfer?) that he had contributed the idea to Crump and Pine Valley that that course would be reversible (the reversible design complete with some hole drawings appeared by Travis in the magazine). As anyone can tell, however, that never happened. Obviously Crump didn't exactly buy that idea.
As to who collaborated with MacDonald on NGLA it seems to me Macdonald covers that pretty well in his book "Scotland's Gift Golf" on page 178. Among others he does mention both Travis and Emmett. But just as with PVGC it seems likely to me that like Crump at PVGC, C.B Macdonald was in complete control of what happened at NGLA from its very beginning until the day he died.