I ask because Yancey Beamer is the ~ fifteenth person to call stating that Old Mac is the best modern course he has ever played. As ridiculous as it sounds, early reports are that men of sound mind and strong virtue prefer Old Mac to Pac Dunes by a 3 to 1 margin.
Is that tantamount to saying that Doak's own original work is inherently inferior to that of Macdonald's? Forget Coore & Crenshaw, why is a dead architect's design philospohy showing up Tom's so badly?
At this mid point in his career, Doak has had the opportunity to work with some outstanding pieces of property, many of which were unfettered by outside constraints such as homes, etc. He has NOT sloughed off on the opportunity either, delivering anywhere from four to eight of the world top 100 courses. At Old Mac, once the gorse was cleared and the landforms emerged, it became clear that it too was indeed a very special piece of land, so yes, a superior course should have followed (especially given the Ken Nice factor) - and apparently it did! Yet, Tom has worked on other sandy ground of comparable merit so the question begs to be asked: Why don't his own interpretations of classic design principles stack up against the more overt copies to which Macdonald adhered?
Of course, quietly, maybe Tom's own work DOES measure up. For instance, even the staunchest member of Woking might not argue too loudly of the merits of their 3rd green complex over that of Tom's work at the 8th at Pac Dunes.
Yet, still....should Tom have been staying closer to Macdonald's design principles all along? After all, one might argue that even a weak-ish Redan like his one at High Pointe is better than no Redan at all. (As an aside, looking around the mediocre golf that surrounds me in Southern Pines/Pinehurst, why aren't lesser, hapless architects FORCED to work with George Bahto and pick from the 20-30 design principles as vetted by Macdonald/Raynor? A bad Road Hole would be a welcome relief from the sheer tedium of soulless holes that abound here).
Tom certainly knew and appreciated all the classic principles most often embraced by Macdonald/Raynor but often eschewed them in favor of looser interpretations or something different. Tom might argue that golf course architecture as a subject is better off for superb original holes like the 13th at High Pointe but, given these early reviews from Bandon, would golfers have delighted even more if all of Tom's designs had an Eden and a Bottle and a Leven and a ...? What say you? What lessons might take Tom take away from these rave reviews? Will they serve as a point of frustration, confusion or pride?
I ask in part because Tom has always pooh-poohed the notion of template holes, so it is ironic to find ourselves in this position with the opening of Old Mac less than ten days away. One thing is for sure: To his great credit, Tom is definitely the only architect that I know where runaway success on a project might might make him grumpy and sullen!
Cheers,