Pat:
Nice topic. Blake Conant sent me a link a few months ago to his interview on 60 Minutes . . . because Blake thought my approach with my associates was a lot like Rubin's.
In general, I think the approach Rubin describes is spot on. On the best projects we've done, the crew are all there trying to do their best work because they love the project and love each other. It's not really for the client, or for me; it's for them. [And ultimately it's for a broad group of golfers, so they trust me to edit their work appropriately.]
That is not how most golf courses are built today. The clients want to be very involved in the story . . . I can't believe how much some worry what might be said about their course, and try to control the narrative. And most architects want to make a top 100 list, or want to go viral on social media, or both. Such commercial concerns clash with the pure love of what you are doing and warp it. I think architects understand that more than clients do, but there are only a few architects who think of this work as art [or a higher calling*] instead of business.
Does any painter start their work thinking of how much they're going to sell it for? Does any great musician start off every day trying to write "a hit" ? Not any of the ones I've spoken to, anyway. They more often say that their most successful works kind of snuck up on them, either in a moment of pure inspiration, or with a much broader acceptance from the public than they expected. [Golf architecture is a little easier, because you have a piece of land for inspiration, and that provides a head start for the success of the course.]
This is also one reason I kick back at Mark Fine every time he tries to take us down the road of discussing "architectural intent". A golf course is a medium for the game . . . we don't control how future golfers will play our holes, any more than an artist controls what people will think about when they look at his work. [If Donald Ross wanted a certain hole to be approached with a 4-iron, he must be disappointed now, but the hole is probably still very good.] Instead, the greatest successes occur when different people and different groups can each find their own thing to enjoy in the work.
No doubt Matt will come back here and say I'm an unreliable narrator because I was in the right place at the right time. True, that . . . although I may have had something to do with creating my own place at the table.
* Probably my most important takeaway from spending time with Pete Dye and Ben Crenshaw and spending my year overseas was that my first responsibility was to the game of golf. That's why they spent time with me.