David,
If true, that is counter-intuitive to me. I rarely see such wild differences in style in an architectural firm, even one with such far flung projects. Most Fazio and Nicklaus courses - regardless of which associate ran the show - have a visceral similarity in design philosophy. I suppose the same can be said for Tom's group.
Gib,
Good points, I suspect the difference for Norman was that, 1. although he was head of the business, he wasn't actually a designer so he had different people drawing up the plans, and 2. He ran them as separate offices, rather than separate projects so there was probably a greater deal of autonomy within the offices. he may of considered the need for different courses in different markets too?
I am going to go out on a limb here and post a picture of a course that I have never played, but here is a photo of a randomly selected Greg Norman designed Florida resort course (Doral Great White) compared to Pelican Waters, a Greg Norman designed resort course in Queensland, Australia (similar climate and demographics to Florida.)
As you can see, the differences are enormous. The second aerial (Pelican Waters) features lots of diagonal angles, width, preferred sides of fairways, and more naturally shaped water hazards. The first aerial (Doral) features almost no holes that make strategic sense (from the aerial) very few diagonal carries, more randonly positioned bunkers and strange shaped greens left right and centre.
On the ground it might make sense (but probably not), but based on the aerial at the very least we can conclude that the difference in styles is stark!
