From Ben Crenshaw's website:
"The company philosophy of Coore & Crenshaw is to work on a maximum of two projects at any time, giving their clients the most of their time and attention. While this limits the number of projects in the company portfolio, it allows the partners to choose the best sites that lend themselves to classic design, requiring a minimum amount of dirt to be moved."

No use of the word "minimalist" here, but it certainly seems to be a priority for C&C to work with sites that require "a minimum amount of dirt to be moved".

Draw your own conclusions!

Coore on "minimalism":

"I don’t know who started that phrase but I’ve been hearing it for years. It has become sort of an “in” phrase. I guess regardless of how you describe it, whether it’s a term or phrase, there is something of a movement in golf architecture toward allowing the land to dictate the golf course. I think there have been some golf courses built in recent years that have proven that very good sites can produce very good golf courses.
Often the very best golf courses are sight-driven and not necessarily demographics-driven and I think you’re seeing some people in the business start saying, ‘We don’t need the courses on the ocean.’ Obviously if you’re going to out in the desert in Las Vegas and you’re going to try to create something extremely attractive a lot of work is going to have to be done. But Shadow Creek doesn’t need to be the role model for all golf courses. There’s still a chance to do, for lack of a better term, minimalistic golf courses.
I think the beauty of golf course architecture is that it should all be different and there’s a place in this world for Shadow Creek and a place for (that) ability. I admire the ability of Tom Fazio (and his team) who can take just a horrible site and create something of immense beauty and enjoyment. I can’t tell you how good those guys are.
By the same token I so admire someone like Tom Doak who can take an absolutely extraordinary piece of ground like Pacific Dunes and know what to do with it and not let his ego [overwhelm the design], and not have to make giant statements out there but let that land dictate that golf course to guide it. Those two are probably the best examples of creating something of extreme quality out of absolutely nothing on one end of the scale, and taking an extraordinary piece of property and allowing it to dictate how the golf course should be done [on the other]. They both require imense talent."

Coore on "minimalism":

By the same token I so admire someone like Tom Doak who can take an absolutely extraordinary piece of ground like Pacific Dunes and know what to do with it and not let his ego [overwhelm the design], and not have to make giant statements out there but let that land dictate that golf course to guide it. Those two are probably the best examples of creating something of extreme quality out of absolutely nothing on one end of the scale, and taking an extraordinary piece of property and allowing it to dictate how the golf course should be done [on the other]. They both require imense talent."

Evidently TD didn't let Bill Coore in on the '"secrets of Bandon Dunes" either.

Pat,
It almost sounds like TEPaul with his "big world" theory.  

rgkeller,
All Coore is saying is that Doak didn't let his ego overwhelm the site.

"Pat,
It almost sounds like TEPaul with his "big world" theory."

It probably is the same thing. I probably did get that from Coore. If I've had a mentor in this stuff, in retropect it'd have to be him. But there've been others. It all started with Geoff Shackelford and went on to Coore, Hanse, others like Rodney Hines, Jim Wagner, Ron Forse, Jim Nagel, Ron Prichard, Kye Goalby, James Duncan, Ken Bakst and even some like Jeff Bradley a little bit. Certainly one picks up things from the architects on here too--Tom Doak's contributions have been one of the best things this website has--and the other architects who've come on here.

Many of them seem to share a trait--they seem to be sort of free-thinkers about architecture. The best of them to me seem to exhibit an attitude that you should always remember to "know what you don't know"--or that there're always things to discover in golf and golf architecture. The importance of the vast "differences" in golf architecture could be one of those things--matter of fact, it just could be the essence of it all.

Not to say that any of those people actually like all of that vast difference in architecture just that they may appreciate better than most that it's probably necessary.

Similarity of any kind can tend to be limiting and ultimately stultifying. It doesn't matter if that similarity is ''minimalism", "maximalism", the highly and evidently man-made or extreme naturalism.

In the end difference is good, in my opinion--it's variety, it's dynamic and it's ultimately healthy and tends toward the creative, the expressive--good, bad or indifferent.

I even remember when he said that at Bandon Dunes. I asked him on the putting green what he thought of Pacific Dunes and he just said it was so different. When I asked what he meant by that he just kept saying it was so different.

I think I understand why he said that and how he can also say something like what Fazio did at Shadow Creek takes immense talent too although I really do doubt that Coore and Crenshaw would ever want to do something like that. And I don't mean to say he likes everything--at one place he didn't even want to get out of the car.

I think the "Big World" theory about golf architecture is right though. Different golfers like different things. Some will like things you don't and won't like the things you do. So what? It's a great big world in golf course architecture and there really is room in it for everyone.

Pat,
Your post had me checking the day of the week. I thought maybe it was Obtuseday but no, it's Thursday.
That is an interview w/Coore.

p.s. who showed Pat how to make bold text?

rgkeller,
you- "Maybe the site was too good to be overwhelmed."

Maybe, but the architect was good enough to notice.

TEPaul,
I wasn't picking on you when I said it sounded like your "Big World" theory, I was just having a little fun.

Pat McMucci,
I'd still like to know what the right answer is.