Personally I think Williiam Flynn was a better router.
Why does Willaim Flynn have to be a better router then Donald Ross, A. MacKenzie, A.W. Tillinghast or any other?
Can't one simply admire all of the styles and methods they used in laying out golf courses?
We have to remember that Ross, just like many "Scotch Pros" like Willie Watson, John Duncan Dunn, etc.; at the turn of the century left for America so they could make big money for the use of their talents as
Professionals who could both instruct the more affluent how to play the Game and to help them construct and build both equipment and rudimentry courses for which to play on. Call it training-wheels if you will, but they first courses were not going to be anything other then temporary layouts until the Game eventually took hold and the need for better golf came about--the courses and golf course design maturated and evolved at the hands of all of the above.
After all, Donald Ross just didn't learn this all at once--he had to learn how to do it. Thinking he did it any other way then by trail and error is just fantasy on those that think it was differently, and that they just started building this stuff right from scratch.
Yes, the styles may or may have not been what these guys thought was golf, but it was what they settled for until people realized, probably after much insistence that the courses they were playing weren't really golf courses but more, obstacle courses--that was the mindset--golf was young and new and addicting to these well-to-do who could aford the equipment and the time to play. They eventually relied on their PAID PROFESSIONALS to educate them further, and once they got past their learning curve of how things flowed and drained and looked natural--the world became their stage.
I think Ross was unique because he
learned how to be a GREAT golf architect by identifying where the best golf could be found, as well as learning how to create features to make GREAT golf. Some of it is quirky and fun and unbeleivable because he seemed to get away with quirk, even manufactured quirk better then any of them. He also made it a life-long passon that garnered the respect of his predecessors, which if your name is Tom Fazio, means absolutely nothing, because you don't believe in Classic Courses or Classic Golf Architecture because it never occured until you stepped away from Uncle Georgie.
But guess what? We still love to play Donald Ross' courses, and of the three Ross courses I have been fortunate to play; Plainfield, Lu Lu, and Gulph Mills, I'll take them 100-1 over any Fazio course including Shadow Creek and The Quarry at La Quinta anyday!
I wouldn't even bat an eye while doing it!