Erin Hills? Was it drastic or desparate?
Well, it was ordered.
(by the chief blue coat and tinkerer of USGA Open courses....)
I wouldn't say drastic -- the basic routing (well, 90 percent of it) is the same, and most holes play similarly to what was originally envisioned, I think. If one was beholden to the original Dell hole (I was not), you might regard it as drastic -- although I'd argue it improved the course.
But several of the changes are dramatic -- the 1st hole is pretty different without the tree and that odd, mostly blind second shot; the 2nd green is half-again as large (but still tiny, and still plays to its original intent, I'd argue); the 5th has a differently aligned fairway (to its detriment); the 7th is now longer, obviously, as it covers the former Dell terrain; the 8th no longer closes the front nine (but little changed), and the 9th, a terrific short par 3, now ends the front nine instead of serving as a bye hole (a good change, I'd argue). The back nine largely remains the same, save for the 10th, now a long par 4, with no Biarritz green (seen as goofy by some), and the denuded 17, with the esker long gone and thus changing the nature of a potential blind second shot. And there are a ton of new, largely penal, bunkers.
I don't know if I'd call it desperate -- these days, and going on for decades really, if you want to host the USGA's Open, you do as they say. The original owner of Erin Hills, and the course's successors, wanted to host that championship.