Would be sort of interesting to see everyone's concise def of "good routing." Sort of like the shot values thread a while back.
For me, the double weighted criteria would be 18 good holes. While some might lament "missed holes" if the ones that are there play well, it is probably a good balance when the gca made the choice to use this land and not that.
I would also assess safety, length and balance, (perfect balance not required, but overall, good balance is better than a succession of long par 4 holes, consecutive 3 or 5 par holes, etc.) the walking ability, and the ambiance or walk in the park test.
For some clients, walking is not a big goal, for others, they have the landscape budget to overcome lack of ambiance. So, I gather those might be judged somewhat differently from course to course, or maybe not.
It's hard to judge a routing unless you have played around with the topo enough to understand what other options might have existed.
I generally agree with your criteria for judging its success. In the GOLF DIGEST tool box, "memorability" is often directly a function of routing, so it should get some points, too. [I find it more important that the variety of holes created by the routing creates memorability, more so than somebody stuck a bunker in the middle of the 11th fairway to make that hole memorable.]
The one issue I might have is with your need for "balance," especially if you are talking about balance between the two nines. Why is a routing that conforms to some arbitrary definition of "balance" better? It's often more memorable if you go against the grain there, because the golfer can't guess so easily what sort of hole is coming next. I'm not a big fan of the predictable.
TD,
Perhaps sequence would have been a better word choice. I was not speaking of par balance between nines, although some folks do value that for handicap reasons. When I wrote, "(
perfect balance not required, but overall, good balance is better than a succession of long par 4 holes, consecutive 3 or 5 par holes, etc.)" that is what I meant by balance.
For that matter, I was always struck by, those Robert Bruce Harris disciples who went for "perfect par rotation" so strictly (where often 6 was a par 5, 7 a short par 4, and 8 the shorter of the two par 3's on the nine) that they achieved different pars and hole lengths, but came out with three short iron approaches in a row. Generally, despite par and length, I try to avoid 3 short shots in a row.
Its also like the old Pete Dye mantra of bend lefts alternating with bends right to create different shot patterns. If too many holes in a row bend the same way, one player may have a chance of getting too far up or down in a match too soon, whereas keeping the match going is generally more exciting.
In reviewing a few posts, things like "quality green sites" seem like the response of an architect or geek. To golfers, it means less, I think, as long as the hole is good, such as the green site being enhanced with bunkers etc. So, I lower that bar from quality green sites to "enhanceable" green sites. Or, clever use of a bad green site. I doubt most would consider the volcano green sites great, but Ross made good use of them by putting them on short holes where an elevated green falling off all sides was a good choice. It would be less good on a long par 4, so in many cases, feature design can cover for a decent, but not perfect routing.