Great responses from everyone, for the most part proving my point, that Willie Park, Jr. is often overlooked for his early pioneering work, both in Great Britain and N. America.
Sunningdale and Huntercombe in the heathlands were two of the very first inland courses in the world to exhibit naturalness. Sure, Hutchinson was writing about it, Colt, Fowler, and Abercromby were lurking, but it was Park who first successfully adapted links principles and characteristics to inland sites. This should never be overlooked.
It seems, unfortunately, there are quite a few "short" courses that aren't necessarily "visually stimulating" throughout New England and Canada by Park that don't attract publicity because of scorecard yardage, and whatever else. Too bad really, 'cause I bet many of those Park courses are a lot more interesting to play than some of the modern behemoths built next door.
Hey Tyler, glad you're on my side
Perhaps you and I, Ian Andrew, and a few other like-minded individuals here in the Great White North will someday have opportunities to do something about the state of golf architecture in Canada.
As far as work on existing classics up here is concerned, I originally felt too, that modern golf architects were simply paying lip service to their predecessors, then "modernizing". But, as I've gotten a taste of golf course construction over the past 5 years, I've come to realize that implementing plans on the ground is very, very difficult.
I think the root of so much of the ill-conceived work on classic courses in Canada stems from poor direction, the resulting second rate construction work, and golf architects not supervising implementation of their plans in the field.
Perhaps I'm being too blunt here? Too bad
