"Let's just assume that all the greens are Dick Wilson (which they are, by the way), the question remains--Should a great course be restored to what the original architect intended?"
"When do you decide that something that has been significantly changed is better than the original? Does better even matter when it comes to restorations?"
Before any of those questions get asked or answered why don't we just ASSUME NOTHING and FIND OUT, if possible, what the evolution of Seminole's greens really was? Otherwise, your question about restoring Seminole's greens has got to be the all time theoretical one!
How can anyone on here even attempt to answer that question when they have no idea what Ross's original greens looked like much less whether what is there now (other than #18) may in fact be Ross's original greens!
I wouldn't even attempt to consider such a thing unless and until I knew a ton more about what Ross's original greens were in minute detail. It wouldn't be a bad idea either to find out if Wilson did change them all, why that was done in the first place.
"Does better even matter when it comes to restoration?"
I sure wouldn't want to belong to a club who decided to restore something to the original even if what was there now was BETTER! I love really good restorations and all but that makes no sense to me at all. You're sort of suggesting a club should restore back to something original from something better just for a name (Ross). If I belonged to a club like that I guess I could go around town and brag: "Well, we restored back to original Ross--it isn't really as good as what we had last year but it sure is back to the original!"
The first order of business is to find out what happened in detail and then try to analyze what Ross did there and if, where and how it was changed. If you can find all that out then MAYBE you can start to determine what is better--but not until! Otherwise you'd be making a massive ASSUMPTION--which can be extremely dangerous!
I just put in a call to Barry Van Gerbig to try to find out what he knows about what Wilson did there. Barry is in his late fifties to maybe sixty and he spent most of his time there when he was a little kid so he would know better than us what Wilson did and didn't do. He's at the Walker Cup and should be reachable in a week or so. In the meantime, I would love to know what the info you have is that makes you so certain what Wilson did at Seminole.