I'm going to inject a bit of reality here into how design works.
Generally speaking, designers do NOT seek to find an inspiration for every hole on a new course from a previous example. C. B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor were maybe the only exceptions to this rule.
However, most designers do have biases in how they think, reflected in how their holes turn out.
So, Dr. MacKenzie may have had a bias in favor of building his short par-3 holes with a left-to-right diagonal green, to punish the short-right and long-left misses most common to lefthanders. The 15th at Pasatiempo and the 12th at Augusta [and the original 16th at Augusta and the 7th at Moor Park] are all examples of that.
But that doesn't equate to using the 15th at Pasatiempo as the template for the 12th at Augusta.
A fine injection, and many thanks Tom...it keeps us/me on track.
I concur, and analysis of certain oft-marketed claims and debates about specific features/holes can lead
(& perhaps has led) debate that way.
My original observation, which it seems is genuinely novel, was very much about the (hidden) original "inspiration" for perhaps all of these Mackenzie holes (ANGC, Blackwell, Pasatiempo & Pitreavie included).
The necessary justifications for the idea inevitably could become comparators for others ("one is a better fit than the others" etc.) and then the back and forth takes us/me even further down "it doesn't match as well as this one" road.
That is a failing of mine, the over-anlaytical. I'm also a "Newbie" on here so there is perhaps an inherent need to justify?
This site is full of people far more knowledgable than I, and as such I wanted to provide as much supporting information as possible to what is really a very simple observation, that may have been misssed by the GCA Community for c.90 years...it is a pretty bold claim...
That being that
"these two REVERSE routed holes on TOC (1stR & 2ndR)
might have been the (previously undeclared/obscured) visual and strategic inspiration for Dr Mackenzie for two great holes at ANGC (12th & 5th)
, what do you think?"I was trying to be careful not to say these two reverse holes were "templates" but perhaps were "inspiration" for his strategic homage. Dr. Mackenzie framed his "Plans for the Ideal Golf Course" in March 1932 that way, and so I was fitting into his own narrative style in specific relation to ANGC.
I think you add an important point, and think I understand the point completely. One doesn't necessarily set out to seek out such inspiration, but that it is an organic creative process defined and focused on the land-forms infront of you.
I would suggest the amount of Golf Courses played, seen, and studied would create more variety, fluidity and flexibility in use of many inspiring features (in whole, hole, or part) from elsewhere that are relevant for the site/location/hole. Directly or implicitly, or even subconsciously.
Whereas templating is limited to and commonly used by those who have not seen as much Golf.
That is understandable as the influencing inputs are limited in the latter and Raynor (not a golfer) & Banks were only exposed to the inspirations CBM gave them, his own homages of the same; so they simply dialled those up and up as their known examples to be inspired by.
This then becomes further distilled and exaggerated as templating, and can be seen as more formulaic. It becomes a brand and ubiquitous style.
But perhaps it is just creativity limited by fewer comparisons and a narrower design palette. The variety will be inherently less, if one has seen less.When growing the game and exposing it to a whole new audience efforts to show what is best practice, and repeatedly, can be interpreted as "formulaic", and the best efforts of say CBM in the US, to be creative get homoginised or misinterpreted by others in the need for speed and growth of the game.
This is perhaps a thread of its own for another day...I have more relating to the (convenient competitive) misreporting and misinterpretation of James Braid's writing and work on that subject...but I mustn't digress (another weakness) lets keep to the question in hand...
Do we (GC Atlas folk) think I could be onto something novel in the original observation?...Does it fill a gap, or is it wild speculation?....Have we missed these potential connections to ANGC (intentional or implicit) as we have viewed TOC the wrong way round?...Cheers!