Peter:
I don't see how this article addresses your first or last questions.
1. The design brief for Trinity Forest was to build a course that could host a Tour event, the SMU golf team, and guests of the corporate members. That's pretty specific. And the site is on top of a landfill that's capped and could not be cut into for environmental reasons, so it's hardly a "blank slate" site. There were a lot of givens, as there usually are.
5. Anybody could have built the Olympic course in Brazil. The only question was how good it was going to be, and I'm not sure Trinity Forest answers that question. For sure, there were a lot more parties at the table -- in fact, so many that Bill and Ben did not even make a proposal to the Rio 2016 organizing committee.