The small handful of responses and private messages make me wish to clarify/hi-lite important distinction(s) in what is really being critiqued when I make such a Worst list...
I hope what comes through is that it is:
1. their route/concessions in route
2. ... on shit property...
3. ...and/or their overgrown arboreal problems
4. ...and/or their nearly humorous operation.
5. ...and their existence as such for 100 years in some cases.
These are not usually the failings of today's architects/restorers...not many that engage some of the experiences and perspectives exchanged here would ever put forth a design that had a first hole such as Ardsley; Tom D. is not making a hole such as 12. St Andrews (he even said so directly). No one is making the 2nd and 13th at Knollwood afresh...
In fact, Knollwood is as playable as it has ever been in 30 years and almost 40 rounds or more on it in that time... it's been smartly cleaned up, choked playing lines vastly opened (the 9th hole - always the best hole on the course - is amazing as to what was opened), bunkers sensibly re-cut/re-alotted/re-stored...
But one can't change the fact that #2 and #13 serve the property, not the golf and that in a more general critique, the slow, accretive, evolved route of that course to "best" accommodate that mountainous, ravine-cut patchwork property makes for a punishing experience...in walking, in blind and semi-blind shots, in side-hill lies, in forced strategies, in OB/lost ball prospects within 20 yards of one side or the other on 14 holes.
cheers vk