Sven,
Great work. This brings up an interesting question, which I tried to address on Pat's Streamsong thread. Aside from the large number of guys who would gladly take this job for the paycheck, how do you sell one of the top names on this gig if the intention is to do as exact a replica as possible? And how is the design then attributed? Is someone like Doak, Hanse or C&C going to be happy to play along since Mosaic is a deep-pocketed client with the proper motivation from a golf standpoint, even if there's very little original creative input involved? Is this an opportunity to give a shot to one of the up and coming archies? Are there any routing issues surrounding added length? Will they stick with 3 tees? At the very least it's going to be a very fun project to observe in progress if it goes ahead...
Jud:
I'd rather not get too far down this road, but I'll give an answer before moving on.
Even though there is already a basic blueprint, I think there'd be enough of a challenge in the project to attract a big name. After all, they'd be faced with battling a ghost.
There are two aspects of the project that you'd have to get right:
1. The details. This would take someone with either an innate ability to mimic the MacRaynor style, or someone who has studied their work enough to be able to figure out the little intricacies. You're not going to get all of them exactly right, but what you do needs to make sense.
2. The construction. Wherever the course was built, the plan for the maintenance meld would have to work. Hopefully it would be on a site blessed with sandy ground, as I don't see this working anywhere else. You'd need an architect and a talented team familiar with moving large amounts of earth with the skill so that over time, just as how Crane described the original, the course would grow to look like it had always been there.
There's a third component involving a modernization of the course, and an adaptation of the design for its new purpose (if its a resort course, there's a host of considerations to take into account). If its on a windy site, would you need to stretch it out much longer? Would you need to realign certain holes for predominate wind directions, or do you just need a team that pays attention to the daily setup?
Who do you know that fits these categories? Doak springs to mind, but I don't think its a project he'd want. Like C&C, I think it doesn't fit his mantra, and he's already done his ode to CBM. Next on the list is Brian Silva, who I think would be a great candidate. I still like the idea of Pete Dye being involved in some capacity, with Alice offering her expertise as well.
Here's the attribution:
Lido Links (2018 - Silva, Dye and Dye, inspired by the original Macdonald/Raynor design)
Whoever it would be, they'd need to have the interest to remain true to the goal, and the humility to not want to put too much of their own mark on it.
Sven