MarkB:
I don't think I'd get too concerned about anyone's use of the term "architecture". The word can be and has been used in a spectrum of ways and applications from the specific to the general. Macdonald in golf and Olmsted in landscapping were probably no different. It can be as general as something that is designed and constructed.
But I think it certainly is interesting to try to track the evolution of golf courses in the context of the histories of design and architecture, primarily landscape architecture, because that probably is its closest and most parallel art form, all things considered.
I'm sure man-made and straight-lined golf architecture probably could be tracked somehow all the way back to man's apparent original inclination to design and build things that way all the way to the glories of building in Greece and Roman, particularly their garden and outdoor layouts which were a fairly geometric style that came to be considered "classic". (Many GB students and interested parties in that kind of thing came to go on what was referred to as "The Grand Tour").
However, I believe the original rudimentary straight-lined architecture of golf was probably done to be more functional simply to support earthforms from disintegrating and much less of an "art" thought or application or intended aesthetic.
Certainly John Ruskin and his "Stones of Venice" is important in this evolution (read Tom MacWood's five part article on here called "Arts and Crafts Golf" for a chronicle of how Ruskin figured in this).
As far as landscape architecture, design or gardening (whatever one wants to call it) is concerned I think it's quite important in the history and evolution of golf architecture, particularly as it came to be more naturalized in its lines and formations and look and style.
I feel the ideas and landscape design expressions and applications of an early English landscape designer (late 17the and 18th century) such as Lancelot Brown and later Repton and others were important in the development of golf course architecture, albeit not intentionally as they both preceded the beginning of man-made and man designed golf course architecture.
Brown began to alter some of the massive English estate landscapes and gardens from the existing geometric and classic Greek and Roman models of the 17th and 18th centuries to more naturalized lines based on what was referred to as the basic "Serpintine" angle (curvilinear and somewhat random instead of straight-lined and geometric).
I don't know if it was much preplanned but eventually (in the late 19th century) some early inland English golf courses got done on some of Brown's and Repton et al massive English Landscape designs. Those massive landscape designs were generally done on what was referred to as "park" or "parkland" estates and that's apparently how the style of the "parkland" golf course came to be. The interesting thing about some of those early English inland golf courses is although they were built within the more naturalized lines of an English landscape designer such as Brown or Repton, the golf features of those courses were still noticeably geometric. But after a while it seems the lines of the prexisting landscape designs probably influenced the lines of the golf architecture in those parkland estates and they too became less geometric and more natural in look and form.
See how it all evolved in some curious and also probably in some almost accidental ways?
PS:
It's hard to say if Mackenzie came up with his idea of "finality" in architecture before or after Behr came up with his ideas on "Permanent" architecture, but I think it's pretty safe to say they were each very aware of one another on that idea and probably talked about it a good deal. Behr and Mackenzie were pretty close both actually and philosophically on golf architecture. Today we could probably refer to the two of them that way as "birds of a feather."
One similarity about the two of them at least philosophically on golf and architecture that Bob Crosby and I have been discussing recently is it seems towards the end of the 1920s they were both attempting to promote, or about to, the idea that "rough" had no real place in their designs and courses.
It just could be that the original design and layout of ANGC was the ultimate in that expression (no rough) and it also just may be it was almost generally either misunderstood or neglected in that way (no rough) fairly quickly. In that particular way and area (the liberal use of rough) Joshua Crane may've won and the likes of Behr and Mackenzie may've lost.
But have no worries as Bob or Bob and I intend to absolutely crucify Joshua Crane shortly on that score almost eighty years after the fact. We believe we have uncovered historic and factual evidence to prove that Crane was a rampant penologist in golf and archtiecture, as well as a unattractive curmudgeon, very likely a child molester, a sot, a wonker, a hater of small animals and just sort of a general inflexible and totally opinionated asshole!