Tom, Thanks for your response.
Braid certainly deserves serious attention for St Enodoc. You will know better than I what his input at Carnoustie was. Blairgowrie is probably his other best-respected effort, although I can hear Paul Turner shouting Perranporth loud and clear! I have a particular affection for Berkhamstead (a view also shared with Peter McEvoy) but I've not noticed many others on GCA singing its bunker-less praises.
As we know Vardon did not like travel and his output is small. It is a toss up whether Sandy Lodge or Little Aston is his best work. I think Sandy Lodge as originally laid out was pretty testing but some of the bunkering has been lost and the inland links nature of the course has been lost to some extent. The greatest loss was probably the 18th, a par three played up and over a sand face equal to that at St Enodoc. It had to be removed because of health and safety (applying to the local railway as well as to players), plus the difficulty of maintenance. South Herts, at which Vardon was the professional for many years, and which he altered piecemeal, is not a memorable course.
I am not sure how many or which courses Herd designed. There is no question about Stockport. Herd laid it out, but, as I say, the detail construction work was done by Peter Barrie, the club's inaugural professional. Barrie certainly took control of the greens and their approaches and the course still makes a very interesting test for those who continue to play the running, ground game. Unfortunately, a large number of trees were planted in the 50s and 60s to separate the fairways of what had been an open and barren course and these are now too restricting in places, and some of the bunkering has been modernised, but it is still possible to play Herd's course more or less as he intended a hundred years after its inception.
I've been lucky enough to play pretty well all of Fowler's UK courses and I always come away refreshed. I don't think there is another architect who is so unrecognisable. His designs are so very different. Quite clearly he responded to what he saw in the land with which he was working and his response was very different on each occasion. You only have to play Bull Bay once to recognise this.
I'm not sure what the roles of Fowler and Simpson were at the Berkshire. Who did what? I think that New Zealand may be the only original of Simpson's I've played in the UK and I found it charming, utterly original, engagingly quirky and something of a period piece. I don't know how much of the work at the likes of Co Louth, Lytham, Porthcawl is his. However, where his work in Belgium survives there is much of interest - I would cite the short two-shotters at Royal Belgique as excellent examples of timeless holes for most of us - ie those of us who do not aspire to 300-yard drives and are more often than not content with 200.
Abercromby is certainly high on my list of creative designers, mostly through the originality of The Addington. I like Coombe Hill, and its par 3s are first rate, but the two-shotters are much more straight-forward (I didn't say easier) than the Addington. I like Worplesdon, and the 18th is as tough a par 4 as players of my inability come across, but it's not as inventive as its neighbour Woking, nor (to my mind) as charming as its other neighbour West Hill (Butchart). My judgement is probably clouded by the unfortunate double crossing of a dangerous main road during the round. What was known as Manor House Hotel and is now Bovey Castle has some interesting skirmishes with a stream on the front nine, but I should be hard-pressed to name an architect for the rest of the course - fairly mundane, to be honest. I've not seen it since it was upgraded. it may now be better.
I don't know any of Alison's solo work, so I cannot comment.
MacKenzie, for my taste, shows the most originality. Colt, for me, shows the surest hand - it will always be good, sometimes great, and the craftsmanship is readily apparent. Fowler excites me because he is so unformulaic. Abercromby's Addington excites me also, his other work less so. From my experience of Braid courses (only a handful of this prolific designer's work) I'd say he deserves a higher profile than he appears to have as a designer. From what I can tell, there doesn't appear to be much Herd remaining intact, so it's probably not possible to judge him. I'm sure Sandy Lodge will help raise Vardon on my appreciation scale. I suppose the order in which I've mentioned these men reflects my rating of them, but it leaves out Simpson because I don't know enough about what he did at his rebuilds and I'm ignorant of who did what in his work with Fowler.