Peter S:
I don't think we've ever met, and you might want to ask some of the people who have met me, what sort of person I am, instead of focusing on a throwaway comment in an interview.
I've spent COUNTLESS hours online on Golf Club Atlas over the past 25 years.
I met my wife at right about the same time, and in hindsight, I should have spent a lot more time with her and a lot less time here. [And each and every one of you might want to think about that, in your own lives.] The only reason I'm here is because I am fairly well obsessed with what I do and trying to get better, and I prefer to interact with hobbyists who might say something interesting or new, than with fellow professionals who are practical and set in their ways. But, for every comment that makes me think, there are a lot that do not, so in the sum of things it has probably been a giant waste of my time, unless there was some value to others in my having answered 100,000 questions from across the board.
I will happily stand by the comment that even people who are interested in golf architecture really don't understand the nature of what designers do, day in and day out. I've been complimented hundreds of times on what a genius I must be to perfect the design of a course in my mind before we have built anything. The reality is that I've built a talented team over the years, and it takes the efforts of several of them over a period of 6-12 months to create the finished product, refining it all the way. My job is to get them started in the right direction, and to edit their contributions to achieve what I think is the best possible outcome. I'm not underrating the significance of that, but that is far different from the cliche compliment. That was the point of my response to Michael's question. And, incidentally, Bill Coore says the exact same thing.