I had the pleasure of meeting Rob in Chattanooga earlier this year.
One of the things that stood out to me was that his design philsophy seemed to truly be a rawly-defined and personal one. He's not a wannabe. His ideas seemed to have a wide range of influences, rooted in an appreciation for classic strategy and the principles of the Golden Age, but without a fear of venturing into what the ODGs might have considered excessive. There's a boldness and variety, even just in the holes at Sweeten's Cove, that shows he can craft a cohesive golf experience from holes that exhibit a tremendous breadth in style. It's a bit surprising, for instance, to see the small green on a short hole with the devilish fronting bunker at the fifth hole immediately after playing the demanding long-iron to a 20,000 sq ft green 4th, with its rugged and massive surrounding bunkers. The ninth hole has features in its green encouraging the ball to run and bounce after landing that most architects would only build on longer par 3s, and the firmness of the turf coupled with the uphill shot makes it work even though you're approaching with a short iron.
What I'm really saying is that I see very little "convention" in what's on the ground at Sweeten's Cove. At most courses, you can glance at the scorecard before playing and get a pretty good idea of what you're in for. That quick test reveals less at Sweeten's than all but a few of the courses I've played. There is scale where another architect would have gone small, risk where you might expect safety, and features that would prompt cries of "unfair!" if they weren't so obviously fun and knit into the core challenge of the course itself.
The one course at Sweeten's Cove is a small sample size, but there's a tremendous amount of variety packed into it that makes me excited to see what Rob does next. Like many other very good modern courses, it's strategic, natural-looking, quirky, playable, and challenging. Unlike many other very good modern courses, though, you won't walk away feeling like you just played a course that you had seen before.