Mike N,
I'm not sure GCA's ought to start from zero on every new design! If you haven't put your experience to work, you really aren't putting your best design forward. It would be like a chef deciding to start with chocolate sauce on roast beef, despite pretty well knowing its not going to work, LOL.
Mark F,
Yes, the idea of copying anyone, including yourself, can be sensitive. In one way, clients love to hear they have your best new original design (despite hiring you based on liking your past work). Years ago, in my year as President of ASGCA, I had the idea to have Jack speak on a panel at our meeting for the first time. His guys told me never to ask if he copied a golf hole, but me being me, I went ahead and asked him anyway! He was gracious, not angry, but careful to say he never copied anything, but then rattled off a few holes that he liked the concepts of, including no. 2 at Scioto, which he had played as a kid.
So some of the discussion is really semantics. TD is an iconoclast, and would rarely admit to ever doing anything but something new and different on every design. It's been great marketing, but again, some of it is just semantics and him defending his method, which we all understand. You and I are just more willing to admit the obvious, an idea that has been around as long as at least CBM, who felt every idea had been tried somewhere a century ago. And, even when I think I am doing something brand new, at some point in my travels I found someone beat me to it. So, is copying a hole you had no idea exists actually using a template? After all, its results and not intent that count, right?
For example, I have done Redans, and after modifying for modern conditions (i.e., expecting maybe 10 yards of roll out vs 50 before irrigation) they are nothing like the original, other than the basic slope. I admit to having two that are the same plan (both on flat ground) but the last one I built was really on a steep reverse slope, and was designed that way out of necessity, but also changed a lot from the basic template I had established for a Redan.
I have heard Pete say that he has 21 holes (same as CBM by coincidence) and he picks the best 18 for any one course. If two of our best somehow came to the conclusion that of all the possible holes, the best conceptual ones boil down to 21, who are we to argue? I kind of go through the same thought process, if I had a pure conceptual choice of a Redan or some par 3 hole X, which would I think is better? If I do it for 37 years, the list does tend to get narrower, LOL. Much like a football coach tends to get a more consistent style over the years, and yes, often more conservative.
Which gets to the point of is variety and new just for new's sake a great thing in design? Whose to know, but my bet is, if similar to nearly everything else in life, probably 5-10% of brainstormed new ideas are any good at all, the rest get rejected. Nothing wrong with adapting workable past ideas perfectly to your green site, or whatever. And, as I mentioned before, in so doing, the hole features change about 5%, and that probably makes it a unique green or hole. And yes, I agree that always keeping an open mind about things is a requirement of great gca. I keep designing until the grass seed is dropped (and some keep on beyond that!)
Lastly, what is a template? Is fw bunker left, greenside bunker right to provide an open angle of play not just a template? Yes, some would say its a pillar of strategy, but everyone would use that one over and over again without pause.
Well no more, time to go get moring coffee, LOL< at which time I may regret having typed this.