Could well be the latter. Are true "template" holes only ones associated with those that were identified by Macdonald?
Bryan,
I'd say not. CBM certainly made templates popular however I think it wrong to suggest he was the first to have tried and tested design templates. I
suspect the early professional golfer architects copied design elements they had used before and indeed nicked ideas from each other. Unfortunately these guys in the main didn't leave much of a literary legacy to judge them on.
Niall