"I always thought that Finlay/Vatican rift was over the issue of cross bunkering. Of course, the fact that Alex was asked to lay out 6 holes on the head of a pin, probably didn't help the working relationship either......."
Look Rich, would you stop always being such a "doubting Richard" and contrarian and just take my word on this--it's impeccably researched and documented. The unsuccessful Vatican course by Findlay had nothing to do with cross bunkering, heads of pins, angels, the Devil and 666 or anything of the kind.
It had to do solely with the fact that Findlay teed a ball up for the Pope, handed him a driver, the Pope thought he should swing like Jason Zubak and he got the end of the grip caught in his papal robes and he ripped one of his balls (testicles or testacles, take your pick) clean off.
But on the subject of golf courses, architecture and the Vatican I will tell you a story that really is true. I saw Pete Dye about this time a year, or maybe it was two years ago and among other things I asked him how his son old P.B. was coming along.
Pete said, laughing, "you never know what might happen next in architecture, P.B. (never known to be the most God fearing or clean living guy around) got the job to do a course right next to the Vatican--go figure."
But he also said that the start of the project got slowed up so while P.B waited for the Roman bureaucracy, the Vatican, the Pope or perhaps God to give him the green light to get started, and never one to sit around and do nothing, P.B. decided to get on a dozer (the Dyes love to operate dozers) and build himself a great driving range and practice area so he could at least hit balls while he waited for somebody on high to pull the trigger on his project!
I'm not sure what's happened with the project but don't worry about history repeating itself like with Findlay and that Pope he was dealing with (known to his close friends as Fredrico the Alto, btw) who ripped one of his balls clean off trying to swing like Jason Zubak. That's not likely to happen again.
Again, no one, not even Pete Dye can figure out how his son P.B got this project. If one were to guess he probably heard this Pope once was a great skier and he told this Pope he could build him a golf course that either looked like or doubled as a ski slope. But history won't repeat itself--this Pope could not possibley rip one of his balls clean off trying to swing like Jason Zubak. I saw this pope a couple of years ago and it was everything he could do to hold onto his papal staff. So golf's future is proably fairly safe from the Vatican and all Catholics will not be forced to play golf in the future to have a chance to get into Heaven.