Tom -
when I first read about the work at this course, I thought that those 'compromises' would be one of its strengths, and that the need to compromise was going to bring out the best in you & your team.
It wasn't a mere possibility that the course would have to meaningfully serve two masters; it was built into the brief, especially since you weren't starting with a blank slate.
I know some of your other courses have hosted top golfers in tournament settings, but this course intrigues me most, e.g. more than Pacific with the Curtis Cup or Renaissance with the European Tour. I'd bet that students of architecture (I mean, real students, i.e. would-be architects, not amateur dilettantes like me) could learn a great deal about real-world course design from analyzing what your team has done there, precisely because of the compromises.
As I get older, I find my once instinctive recoiling from the very notion of compromise disappearing -- in part because the process of compromise demands that we grapple with difficult decisions more seriously (than we do when we have a so-called 'free hand', which is never really free in any event), and that we make many of our typical and/or unconscious choices more consciously.
Hey, now there's a book title you're likely not using any time soon:
"Compromise: What I Learned about GCA from the PGA Tour"
