Pat,
I am sure that early next year, many will believe that we (Damian Pascusso, Steve Pate, and I) "disfigured" La Costa, but I hope not. It turns out only the tournament 18 was really done by Wilson, and Joe Lee did the two newer nines. You could see the difference in bunkering. However, it also turns out that the Lee nines were built in house with no supervision. Bunkers sat on top of mounds, not in them. Also, at some point, all greens had been rebuilt simply by adding new mix on top of the old greens, raising them a foot.
We took the best of the Wilson bunkers, measured them, and used those kinds of dimensions to try to recreate that style all over the North Course. Since the newer parts were total rebuilds, we made sure to use the same shaper on all of them, so there is also a little bit of both him and us in those bunkers, and as time went on during the project, we used the style, but let the bunkers expand to where they seemed to want to go, even if the pure shape of the Wilson bunker was already there.
Just goes to show how some value decisions must be made in even the intent to restore.
Even more than the bunker style, I would say that the raised greens are a Wilson Trademark, and I also think that is what may have helped reduce the popularity of his, or really, the 50's style - too penal and aerial for the average player. That said, I recall Brent Wadsworth, on one of my early KN projects, telling us about that style and how cool those 15% up slopes into the green were. "That's the way you build greens," he said. At La Costa, I think those elevated approaches do look cool, way cooler than the many ground level approaches built now.
Just my $.02