I'm not sure any one is going to challenge Mr. Colt on this one.
Dye, Doak, Mac or Ross maybe? Just for the sake of the discussion.
It's certainly NOT me. I've built some good ones -- every decent architect has -- but par-4 holes are my #1 priority.
Flynn and MacKenzie are reasonable challengers to Colt, but I am surprised that no one has suggested A.W. Tillinghast. [Phil Young must be offline today.] Tillinghast always said that he looked for good sites for the par-3's first and the rest of the routing revolved around them ... and just off the top of my head, he built the 10th at Winged Foot West and the 7th at SFGC and the 2nd at Somerset Hills, three I'd rank as personal favorites.
Stanley Thompson should be in the discussion, too. Some don't like his insistence on including a 230-yard hole in the mix -- Donald Ross gets the same complaint in New England -- but Jasper alone has three great short holes.
I'm also surprised Pat Mucci didn't suggest C.B. Macdonald or Seth Raynor, who just took their four classic par-3's and built them over and over again.
P.S. Gibraltar is a great hole. The tilt of the green is certainly somewhat different than the Redan, but there was enough similarity between them that Dr. MacKenzie went out of his way in THE SPIRIT OF ST. ANDREWS to mention that he had never seen North Berwick at the time he built Gibraltar. .