I appreciate your reply. Fundamentally, you seem to believe that Lawrence Hughes disregarded what Ross wanted and made changes in the field without approval.
You've presented no evidence to support the fact that he knew about let alone approved of the changes another architect and builder put into the ground. What is known is that the drawings were Ross, so I think leaning more heavily on those while also respecting what has been played for nearly 100 years is a worthwhile tactic to take here.
John, this whole thing seems wildly overblown, and you keep bringing up straw men like the cross mounding on the 15th, the split 7th fairway, etc. that haven't even been altered… for what reason? They're straw men.
This whole thing in a nutshell: you don't like the bunker changes to the 15th, and you called them a "major" change (or something), despite the fact that the bunker complex exists in the same location, has the same effect on strategy, and was merely modified in place to accomplish the stated goals of improved drainage and/or maintenance, about which you have said you "know next to nothing."
That's almost the whole argument here: you don't like changes that were made in the name of drainage. And you've been super critical of the ownership and the architect while making a bunch of assumptions without any real supporting evidence.
One has to marvel at the resilience shown by Holston Hills superintendents over the past 97 years as they put up with poorly designed drainage.....
Is it not possible they've simply said "we've had enough, we need to fix this once and for all"?
Maybe go ask your superintendent how much trouble that complex used to cause? You make a LOT of assumptions and a lot of accusations, based on a lot of BS like "it's worked for 97 years," when you could so easily just go talk to someone, or take people at their word versus someone who, again, "knows next to nothing about drainage."
It implies that these features were less legitimately “Ross” than others. But they were part of the final design that Ross approved of. I’ll show you why I think that.
None of what you then go on to talk about speaks to whether Ross "approved" of the final design and the changes instituted during construction by Hughes.
Re: the 9th, I'll mostly ignore the "an ideal tee shot is to the left, bringing fairway bunkers into play" comment. The hole was a driver, sand wedge the last time I played it. It's 417 from the black tees. The ideal line is away from any trouble on the hole.
To lesser players, the cross bunker in front of the green is undoubtedly something they have to weigh. To better players, it's almost always nothing. Removal architecturally will have an effect, but as they've noted, the reasons for this renovation go beyond the architectural: they go to drainage (maybe the whole green drains into the bunker) and maintenance (more sand to maintain that only really punishes the poorer golfer).
And… this may be another straw man anyway, as I haven't read anywhere that the cross bunker is even being removed.
He said that he and John McConnell had visited HH to look at the work and that it “meets our expectations of what the Ross plan shows without major changes to the previous bunkering.” If what they did at 15 isn’t major, I would hate to see what that looks like. Shoun, like Spence, seems to overvalue the plans.
They CHANGED the bunkers (likely to, as stated, improve drainage, cost, and/or safety), they didn't eliminate them. They didn't move them to the other side of the hole, or 30 yards farther from the green. What you're calling "major" was in fact a small change on one of the 18 holes. They softened some mounding and reduced the amount of sand in that area.
Stiles did a good job explaining the history of the course. The man that built the course for Ross had build other courses for him. It seems very logical that he would have communicated design decisions with Ross.
Where you say "seems very logical" I think another person could say "it seems logical that as a designer himself, Hughes put his own stamp on things after Ross left." One can stipulate that what was put in the ground in 1926 still existed in 1937 without also agreeing that Ross approved of everything put in the ground.
Also, I had typed up something MUCH longer, but in the end it's really very simple. John makes assumptions about what Ross knew or approved of, uses hyperbole and straw men, and knows "next to nothing" about drainage to slag on the work of particularly the 15th hole bunker complex; a bunker complex that was merely altered in place, not moved or removed, and was done so for drainage concerns… What a riot.