Bob,
I wish I knew how to do the posting, it was Craig Disher's skills (Craig, I promise I won't send anyone your phone number). Tom and I have a bunch of individual hole drawings that I would love to post for all to consider (Flynn, Ross, and a few others). Ran, if you could include a how-to page or a link that would show the steps, it would greatly add to the content on the site.
Chris,
Good questions (and tough!). In my opinion, there is Shinnecock and then everything else in Flynn's inventory. Ran asked me why there is such a drop off in the quality of his inventory after SH. Well, the rest are all strong courses with some absolutely great ones. This is less an indictment on the rest of the courses but an acknowledgement of just how great SHGC is. Tom Paul pointed out, and I agree, especially with the more courses we see, that Flynn's career inventory is stronger across the board than any other architect; he didn't build weak courses. The reason for this is he limited his yearly output and worked very hard at each individual site where he often made several design iterations with some seemingly minor changes along the way that result in the finished product. Not only this, he went back and made revisions where necessary after the courses were in play for a time so that he could amend the plan if necessary.
Of the 20 or so courses I have seen, I would definitely put RGGC in the top 5. Huntindon Valley, Philly Country, Lancaster, Lehigh, Brookline, and others have some similarities to RGGC. A comprehensive analysis will have to wait till the book comes out. Flynn designed great courses but also did significant designs and redesigns at some of the outstanding courses of his day (Merion (East and West), TCC-Brookline, etc). We are still analyzing our wealth of materials and gathering others from various sources, but I feel certain that the more we know of Flynn's work (accurately attributed) the higher the regard we have for him.
Tom Paul was the first to remark that Flynn was part of a movement in golf that seemed to originate on the east coast in general and in Philadelphia and Oakmont in particular. This is the notion of championship golf courses that were not meant for everyone. Earlier architects were spreading the game and it would not have helped if all the courses that were bringing the game to the masses were just plain brutal to play. Flynn, Wilson, Crump,Tillinghast, Fownes, etc raised golf architecture to a more sophisticated level in demanding specific shots and a wider range of skills to play the course effectively.
Some things are certain: Flynn had a wide range of design tendencies and particularly bunker styles; made very specific shot demands of good golfers (offered multiple tees and other routes to the green for mediocre players); pushed the envelope in terms of degree of difficulty (Mill Road Farm); was an innovator (multiple tees, reversible course design (Pocantico Hills)); routed better than anyone ever did and was bold and daring in doing so. His courses on rolling terrain (Cascades and Homestead) in PA (Huntingdon Valley, Lehigh, Lancaster, Philly CC, etc) and the northeast is the work usually associated with him, but he did terrific work on flat ground and near the sea (Kittansett, Atlantic City CC, Boca Raton North and South, Indian Creek, and others).
The Flynn greens are the most consistant part of his repetoir with generally restrained internal contours compounded by some significant slope. He definitely liked, as others did, to situate them on elevated sites where he could with rollbacks in the front as Mike Cirba has previously noted.
As far as a "best of list" goes, I will hold off for now. But I encourage others to post their own best long and short par 3,4, and 5 holes. Best stretch of holes, most daring routing, best finishing hole, starting hole, etc.
I think all will be pleased with the book that Tom and I are working on and hope to finish by the first quarter of 2004. It will be a comprehensive study of his work in golf, utilizing an unprecedented amount of archival materials for an architect of that era, with an extraordinarily high standard of research and analysis. This last point is most important to us, that the process we use is accurate and exhaustive so that the output reflects as much truth as can be determined. Where there are any educated assumptions, they will be so noted.