Mike B: I have now corrected that caption. Though in my defence he did push the crap out of it and it made a pretty good beeline for the 7th green...
John L: Like any great golf course, I thought one of the greatest strengths of Fishers was the green sites. 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18 are all great sites and I think it's pretty clear it would have been a tough ask to get all those sites into the one cohesive routing. Of course it all looks so obvious playing it decades later. It usually does!
As you note, the shapes may look engineered, but what's built on the ground enhances the natural land shapes and formations in many instances. I liken it to someone drawing a characature. I may have a big forehead, but in a characature it would be enormous, in the same vein it felt like Raynor exaggerated things where his templates fit, rather than forcing the land to build a hole where it didn't belong.
For instance, the 12th green already is on land leaning L-to-R, but the massive left-hand kickpad and carverous RHS bunker make that land movement even more extreme. It has clearly been built, but it is BOLD and I think more than any other fact that boldness is what makes such clearly manufactured features work. At least to my eye.
And still, you get holes like 3 and 4, 6 and 9, which all, but for some green shaping and bunker construction, feel as draped over the land as anything I played in Britain.