William,
Feel free to tell us us what "getting the most out of the property" really means.
Again, it is a catchy phrase we have all heard for decades, but I have never seen anyone actually spell out the methodology of how we make the assessment. That is what is missing from the literature. That is something no one has done here at GolfClubAtlas or it's predecessor, Tradional golf.com.
For fifteen years I haven't seen it. If Mac can be the first, that would be great. That might even truly be genius!
It hasn't been done because it is not an easy task. Absent exposure to a site prior to construction and to the various routing plans considered, there is no chance, I believe. That severely restricts the number of people who could even try. Then, too, with most of the world's best 100-200 courses, there really isn't much documentation on the routing plan as it developed. So, no real way to truly evaluate the architect's decision making on the routing plan.
Tim:
You are making it harder than it needs to be. Getting the most out of the property is a always going to be subjective, and it's never the same because every property is different. But it IS the goal.
It will always be hard to quantify genius if we agree with Immanuel Kant on what it means. From wikipedia:
"much of Schopenhauer's theory of genius, particularly regarding talent and the "disinterestedness" (i.e. "free play") of aesthetic contemplation, is directly derived from paragraphs of Part I of Kant's Critique of Judgment.[13]
Genius is a talent for producing something for which no determinate rule can be given, not a predisposition consisting of a skill for something that can be learned by following some rule or other.
And even harder if we go with the Nietzsche definition, also from wikipedia:
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."
In the philosophy of Nietzsche, genius is merely the context which leads us to consider someone a genius. In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche writes, "Great men, like great epochs, are explosive material in whom tremendous energy has been accumulated; their prerequisite has always been, historically and physiologically, that a protracted assembling, accumulating, economizing and preserving has preceded them – that there has been no explosion for a long time."
Years ago, I defined my own first goal more simply: to come up with a routing which required earthwork or re-shaping of the fairway on the fewest number of holes. That sort of "path of least resistance" is the essence of minimalism [and of the Interstate Highway system].
I realized over time that the best possible routing could mean more than that. Sometimes, it might be better to move dirt on another hole or two so you can work your way into a corner of the property with a unique character or a great view or a special hole you would otherwise have to leave out. Stone Eagle has a good example of that. It took a massive leap of faith to climb up to the sixth or seventh holes -- not just to include that corner, but so we DIDN'T HAVE TO INCLUDE the property to the right of #13, which was fraught with difficult terrain and ugly neighboring properties. That's the sort of thing that, as you say, most observers could never understand unless they had looked hard at how all 18 holes could fit onto the site.
Yet, you could look at Stone Eagle and determine that there were no great views that we missed. Or that, in spite of it being very difficult to walk, the only way it would have been more walkable would have been to tack back and forth up the hill and destroy many of the rocky features between the holes that are the essence of the place. So you could say, generally if not specifically, that we seemed to get the most out of what the site offered.
Likewise, it would be impossible to analyze all the options Ballyneal or Sand Hills presented and determine if the routing I came up with was really THE best one. I can tell you that because at the end of the day, I know that even I don't really know the answer to that question for Ballyneal, much less Sand Hills ... there were hundreds of acres to work with and a lot of good terrain, and any solution was doomed to leave out lots of great stuff. I only know that for Ballyneal I came up with a routing that seemed to make the most of the terrain, and get to all the coolest places within reach, and provide a great variety of holes, and avoid any holes which destroyed the flow of the routing or the sense of the whole.
Even the greatest of chess masters does not know the game completely. If they did then there would be a perfect move for every given situation, and they would never lose [but they would probably play to a whole lot of draws against other masters]. And 200 acres of good ground is a LOT more complicated than a chess board.