Can someone please specifically point out where CBM claims to have invented golf course architecture or where he claims to have been the first golf course architect? He may have, but I don't recall him ever saying specifically that.
The term had been used plenty before NGLA, both overseas and in America. For just one example, there was an article in April 1901 issue of Golfer, titled "Bunker Architecture" in which the author argues that the american system of Cops is better than the natural bunkers abroad " . . . the hazards on the American courses make golfing more enjoyable than abroad; that is, good golf is encouraged and poor play penalized more thoroughly through the judicious arrangement of bunkers." He also describes their dimensions and placement in great detail, and goes into some other details about how to arrange a course. Here is just a bit of his sage advice:
The ordinary bunker has a trap or pit two and one-half feet deep, eighteen feet wide, and thirty feet long. The cop at the back of the trap should be three feet high in front with a sloping back, its thickness depending entirely on the quantity of earth or other filler at hand. The tops of the cops are sometimes rounded, but are oftener flat for about twelve inches from the front, and then they slope gradually to the fair green. The front of the cop should be built in steps-of-stairs fashion, each sod being cut in a strip fifteen inches long, six inches wide, and allowed a hold of four inches. In order to prevent players or caddies from climbing over the cops, a pathway should be cut through the centre in such a manner that the ball cannot roll through it. The entrance to this passageway is generally three or four feet to the right or left of the exit, and it is desirable to sod its sides, with a long slope so as to have a fair opportunity of getting at the ball in case it should lodge there.
. . .
Judging from the lay-out of some of the best golf courses in the United States, the most judicious arrangement of hazards for such holes follows:
Take a 150-yard hole, for instance, and if there are no natural hazards it is advisable to place two cop-bunkers 110 yards. from the tee, side by side clear across the course. About one-fourth of the bunker in front should overlap one fourth of the other, leaving a path running sideways and not straight for the hole, to prevent balls rolling through. Each of these bunkers should cover one half of the width of the course. The trap should be twenty feet wide and two and one-half feet deep, while the height of the cop should be three feet from the ground.
In order to catch a sliced or a pulled ball, an oblong or half-moon shaped bunker, without cops, two feet deep with sloping sodded sides, should be placed on each side of the putting-green, about five yards from its edges.
Pretty good indication that calling it "architecture" doesn't mean too much in terms of quality.