Chris J:
The best holes are the best holes. Most players I know want the absolute best holes over beginning and ending at the exact same place.
What if pursuing the 18 best individual holes compromises the routing with long distances between greens and tees - is there not a interplay between hole quality and routing that needs to be considered, with perhaps a lesser hole included for the sake of a more effective routing?
Luckily this is one of those places where architect and client do not have to agree, as long as the architect is smart enough to work out a bunch of great holes with good connections.
I am sure it is not so important to Chris or to many Dismal River members whether the holes are close together, because they love their carts. But I'm going to be walking my course until I am just too damned old to walk anymore, and the connections matter a lot to me. If a course has too long a connection from greens to the tees, you may stop thinking about golf altogether, and we are trying to avoid such breaks.
Most of the holes here have very short connections to at least one of the tees [sometimes the back tee is closest, sometimes the forward tee is closest]. One of the holes I'm wrestling with the most is #1 -- I think it would be a much better short par-5 than the present par-4 that's mowed out, but that would make for an awkward walk back to the best places for the tees on #2, and I hate to have a bad transition right out of the gate. But, I don't want to settle for a less exciting first hole, either.
One other thing about good connections and walkability -- it may not matter to a given membership, but it certainly matters in the bigger scheme of things. There is still not a top-50 golf course that's a really hard walk, and I don't plan on trying to make the first.