Tom,
Are you suggesting "design intent" is not important or should not be taken into consideration in trying to bring back the original architect's look, feel and playability? I am not smart enough to come up with a new word what to call this, but I do know that it is an important part of the process?
I ask again, why did many architect's design elasticity into their designs? Wasn't it in part for this purpose?
Mark:
"Design intent" is certainly NOT important when you are trying to restore the original architect's look and feel to a course. Those are matters of fact that are more easily restored if all the pieces go back to where they were. My newest consulting client is a club where the previous architect's plan was to "restore bunkers back to the original [famous architect's] style" ... even though there are now 60 or 70 bunkers, when the original design only had half that many.
It is the "playability" angle where architects show off their brain power and insist that everything needs to be different now, assuming that the goal is to challenge A SCRATCH PLAYER the same way the course did in 1925. They define everything by how the course was "intended" to play for the scratch golfer back then, as if the scratch player was the main focus of the design. That's where our disagreement lies. You want to restore the course for the 2-handicaps; I want to restore it for the 10-15 handicaps who are the brunt of the membership -- whose games have not changed all that much in the intervening 90 years.
The 8- or 10-handicap can play the course exactly as the architect visualized it to be played by those scratch golfers 90 years ago ... as long as you don't move the bunkers to places they weren't, and call it a "restoration".
Elasticity is fine, if it there is room for it -- unless, by building back tees on some holes, you are making the case for moving bunkers on the other holes where there's no room for a back tee.
My recommendations on elasticity have been different for different clubs. Many courses have already built a lot of back tees, and they're not going to take them out. Some have plenty of room for more distance, and I've taken advantage where it was available. At a few, such as The Valley Club of Montecito, they were so close to a true 100% restoration that I declined to add even a few back tees that the committee clamored for. I knew they'd just find someone else to do it, but I recommended what I thought was right. So now Todd Eckenrode gets to hang out there, after we did 97% of the work [and 100% of the restoration].