Tom MacWood:
What Ross said in that 1910 British magazine interview seems similar to Tillie's "Cart Before the Horse" hole concept but in a fundamental way it really isn't.
In my opinion, what Ross said and what he fundamentally meant to say is basically the essence of all really great golf courses and architecture is that the golf architect has created a situation where any golfer feels he is capable of finding his own best way to his final destination--the hole---eg he feels he can find his own strategies and routes rather than absolutely having to do something or one set of things that has been laid down by the golf course architect that he MUST do. The latter many of us today call architectural shot or design dictation---eg there is one right way to go and the rest is wrong or penalty inheriting.
Interestingly that old fashioned design concept that some of the best golf architects (like Flynn on some courses or Geo Crump) got into that we call "shot-testing" architecture was a severe form of architectural or design strategy dictation. It's only wrinkle, or perhaps saving grace, is that it was understood back then what the risk/reward equation was. And that was to accept the one dimensional super severe design risk or just refuse to accept it and willingly expect to give up a shot and get to the green in one more stroke, with the only expectation being perhaps you could pitch and one putt thereby making up that expected additonal shot for the hole. (There was another nuance to that old fashioned risk/reward equation that was sometimes referred to as "The Tortoise and Hare" analogy
).
Although Tillie's "Cart Before the Horse" hole concept is interestingly an upside down form of total shot dictation it is shot or design dictation nevertheless as basiclly most all players are forced to do the very same thing on that type of hole.
In other words, their strategies really aren't their own, they are a set of one dimensional shot requirements laid down by the architect, again, even if in a form basically upside down compared to the way most golf holes are designed.
Again, what Ross was saying and what he clearly meant, in my opinion, is the very essence of all truly good STRATEGIC golf and architecture.
An old Scottish song reminds me of that fundamental strategic essence that any golfer can feel is his own. That song goes;
"Ye take the high road and I'll take the low road and I'll be in Scotland before Ye."
That fundamental "player's own" strategic feeling is also the essence of one of strategic architecture's greatest analogies---eg "The Tortoise and the Hare".
That meant that if you played cautiously and willingly expected to give up a stroke on the hole your opponent (the Hare) may play recklessly and give you back that dropped shot or more.
These analogies and design concepts were definitely from the days when a match play mentality reigned in golf and architecture far more than it does now.