On a thread a couple of days ago, Tom Doak claimed that he has no principles when it comes to designing courses. He admitted his reluctance to admit it, as clients might think him crazy. Exactly.
In my experiences at work and in American political life, I've known people who were unguided by any principles, except their own pleasure or satisfaction or other interest. People with no principles find it easy to behave in an unprincipled way, as Richard Nixon showed us and as today's politicians show us regularly. But even the most unprincipled operate according to the principle of self-preservation or their re-election, in the case of the pols.
I understand artistic iconoclasts, whose operating principle is to ignore precedents and fashion their own styles of art. But a person who deems himself a "minimalist" and is committed to the idea that the GAME of golf should be FUN, and who, in any case, makes design decisions to satisfy a client -- even after explaining a better way, which the client nevertheless declines -- cannot be a truly principle-less designer.
Every new course involves the designer and the land in a relationship, in which certain things have to happen. Surely someone like Tom, no doubt fairly regularly, given his innovative designs, cannot be accused of being formulaic and guided strictly by a series or list -- see Dr. Mac's Big 13, e.g. -- of requirements in his fashioning his 18 holes.
Or am I overlooking something by reading too literally? Is iconoclasm and "unprincipled" design work more common than I realize.