Mike, the Whistling Straits book had been acquired by Wiley's predecessor, Clock Tower Press, and was basically focused on the 2004 PGA Championship there, with a significant pre-sell to the American Club Resort. The manuscript needed considerable work, as it was basically a collection of newspaper-style, contemporary narratives of the championship, tied to the larger story of golf there. There was a lot of interesting material, but I never got to see the photography, which would have been key.
I'm not sure I've had that many "ideas" for books. The Ross thing sold itself to a rather modest publisher, Sleeping Bear (Clock Tower's predecessor). The same publisher actually bought a book I wrote in 1998 on golf and the media, which completed manuscript I'm still sitting on because the essays were all derived from my "iGOLF" days when I wrote "A View from the Couch" and it probably would not have much of a shelf life from the late-1990s. (note: timing isn't everything, but it's a lot of the issue with books)
The two club histories I've done were privately arranged, so they don't count. At this point, I'm trying to work with a book agent, who would serve as an intermediary, and have sent off proposals for three books that I think are worthy projects. This is my effort to be even more crassly commercial. We'll see. The books I've done have not exactly been best sellers, though the Ross book has a pretty decent shelf live and does fairly well esp. for an $85 price tag (which is subject to standard industry discount but still very pricey in the book world). But the value of wriitng architecture books -- besides the idea sand the imagery of the book -- is that it moves you into a different category of writer and enhances your reputation and opportunitities in other ways (i.e. "branding.")
I'm sure any writer in any field can basically tell you the same story, namely that about 1/3 of your good ideas get to book length projects, and about half of those get published. What I will tell you is that there is no relationship between being able to write the occasional or even the frequent article and writing a book. You don't write a book -- you write day-by-day, page-by-page, and mainly seem to rewrite, and if you are unwilling to give up lots of golf games and reruns of "Law and Order" you'll never get the manuscript done. You better like to write.
The other thing about doing books is that you have to be very promotional, very persistent (I almost wrote "aggressive"), not just in selling the ideas and writing the thing but in designing it and then, post-publication, selling it every chance you have at book signings, talks, radio interviews, wherever. It's a business, as well as an art. In the great literary scheme of things, these books are very modest endeavors. I am amazed how tough a business it is, and how good the writers are who succeed. It helps to be young and to catch on early, which is certainly not my case.
My bet is that the business of books is, in many ways, like the business of golf course architecture. You have to have a love of the basic craft, and you also better be a very good marketer.