First off, I have stayed out of the Holston Hills thread, on purpose. I don't do consulting anymore, so I think it would be unfair for me to weigh in on what they've been doing since I left. If I wanted to have an opinion on it, I'd get paid for it.
So, I'm not sure exactly whose case I may be supporting or not by what I say about CommonGround.
CommonGround was a unique project for us. Eric Iverson and Jim Urbina both lived in Denver, and Don Placek grew up out there and went to school with the Director of the CGA, so it was very personal to all of them, much more than me. So, at the beginning I told them I would give them each three holes to do as they pleased and then I would work with each of them on three others. As a result, the course is much less "mine" than most, though I did put in some good days out there and I remain involved with the CGA and their programs. I've stopped in to see it three times in the past four years.
Charlie's choice of the 8th hole as an example of how we don't always follow the plans is a prescient one. It was a very flat hole and though the strategy on the plan looked good on paper, I hated how it turned away from the 9th tee and so I tried 2-3 different arrangements of bunkers and mounds and green shaping until we settled on what we did. It is the hole I worked on the hardest and probably the only hole that is 100% mine.
I have always felt that in restoring a golf course, I should restore what was built in the field by the original designer, to the extent that we can determine what that was, unless there is some reason that's impossible or it was clearly documented why the original design didn't work. I figure that if the hole changed from the plan, it changed because the architect made the change, or a construction manager whom he trusted to make the call in the field decided it needed to be changed. I suppose some associate or construction manager might go rogue from time to time, but generally not on the kind of courses where I have consulted.
Anyway, the good news for the preservation of my own work is that it should all be documented on LIDAR in recent years, and anyone can look back and find the exact shape of things as they existed in 2013, and that's probably what they should go with if they want to restore any of my work.
And to Matt, whose last post I saw as I was about to hit "post" : some courses might turn out better if you just trusted me to do the right thing instead of restoring them exactly. Just don't call it a restoration, then. You do not have to take the greens back to 5 on the Stimpmeter to restore a course. I didn't have to do that in any of the 20+ restorations I worked on. Most of those old green contours are just fine unless the club is stupid enough to take their greens above 11 or 12 when the contours don't work at that speed.