Shooter, you asked; Are you able to tell from looking, if a course was a CBM or a SR? How?
Easy - CBM hardly built any outside of NGLA
..... he was "involved" in a few with input but most
were Raynor designs - even some of the big name courses. CB often helped with the layouts but left
details to SR. A lot of clubs want CB's name attached to their course (this before all the Raynor material
has come out over the past few years. I visited a number of clubs early-on telling them about Raynor
designing their course .......... they looked at me with this blank stare 'cause they didn't know who he
even was - however all that has changed.
CB had a few pet projects (Mid-Ocean and such). He often helped with layouts at early courses and left
usually arguing with club management)
But back to your original thought:
I think the main difference in hole design by CB & SR is that Charlie's designs are considerably more
bold - like they pop you right between your eyes, daring you to challenge his hole. A number of them at
Lido were like that - then also at Lido Raynor also was left to do a lot on his own.
There were a few holes at Gibson Island that were very bold (stuff I had not seen before anyplace
before) that shrieked of Macdonald.
I think the key is that, like most designers, a lot of their designs are a reflection of their own personalities:
Macdonald .....bold - brash - demanding - often uncompromising etc .... while Seth's work was, like his
personality much more subdued.
I've most all of their remaining courses and you can sort of see their work under later modifications if you
know what to look for except when someone has come in and obliterated areas of the course. The key,
often, is an original scorecard followed up by an early aerial.
Then you asked: What do you think we'd be seeing from SR if he were working today? A change in style
to some extent but still keeping the basis of the great holes. I think there was a transition taking place in
the work of Raynor just before the time of his death. There is a difference in his early and later works
(again, like all other architects). Early Tillie is a good example as is early Emmet vs after he helped
Charlie at National.
CB said there were only about seven (?) of so basic strategies (if taken down to their lowest common
denominator) like Redans, Road holes etc. Whether he was correct or not I'll leave for others to argue
about but just think about a lot of today’s modern holes - they are often disguised with frills etc .... but if
you look closely you can find many of those classic strategies CB used. Pete Dye is an excellent
example of this as is Tom D. Gil etal ....... the strategies are so pure you'd have to be a nut (ego?
)
not to use some of them.
Again, we go back to "variations of great classic themes"