Matt Mc,
Is that a real statistic?
Mark Fine,
I think T Fazio, in his book, softened the word to "preferences" rather than formula, but most of us do have formulas or preferences. And most of those are based on seeing what has worked before, i.e., not elicited a bunch of course manager or golfers complaints. All formulaic design ideas started as stuff that worked well, and morphed into design standards. Just like several govt regulations, where someone took a common sense idea and wrote it into law, where it becomes objectionable for its sameness regardless of circumstances, design standards can eventually raise some scorn.
Or, if form follows function, it makes some sense that formula follows function soon thereafter, because, in the end, most of a golf course functions the same from course to course. At least in high play public courses, which have different basic function that a resort, club, or tournament course.
The OP example of par sequence and routing formulas is probably the least formulaic part of the design (see my post on designing for maintenance budget.) Every site is different, (except the flat Florida swamps Pete got a lot of) and par sequence depends more on the property than any preference.
That said, I have a few routing preferences, based on common wisdom and experience.
Holes 1 and 10 (due to multi tee starts on weekends at many courses) should be longish but not tough. Short par 4 and par 5 holes risk waiting to hit the second shot, if a par 5 is reachable, or if a par 4 is short enough where a muffed tee shot (so common on the first hole) still lands within reach of the green, so the golfer must wait longer to hit, rather than walk up and strike the shot, with no worries of hitting golfers on the green.
Par 3 holes slow play, so moving those as far back in the nine is better. Reachable par 5's are best reserved for the latter 2-3 holes each nine for similar reasons.
As more and more research is done on the pace of play, I have added to my routing preferences, although it's not always achievable given the land. Specifically, 18 similar difficulties par 4 holes would play the fastest. So, instead of a hard hole followed by an easy one (or worse, the other way around!), it might make sense to have equal difficulty holes, but for different reasons, i.e., one hard tee shot and easier on other shots, one with a hard approach only, and one easy tee to green, but harder to putt, with overall difficulty about the same. If you think about it, to avoid back ups, placing the harder holes first, and getting easier as you go would reduce waiting on each tee as the day went along! Or, starting the round with a par 3 (or 4 consecutive ones!) Getting harder as you go tends to back up play.
That isn't practical, as we like the rhythm of harder and easier holes. As per above, if par 3 holes back up play, it makes some sense to make the holes just before a par 3 harder, and just after, a bit easier, to slow down golfers before the hole, and speed them up after. And, in general, par 3 holes should be easier just to get golfers through them (I know Ross said they can be a bit harder, but I don't think he thought about the pace of play as much) And, I believe a sequence of a par 3 following a par 5 (one hole can have three groups on it at a time, vs. the par 3 allowing just one group, causing even more backup) is probably not a great idea (although the difficult long par 4 probably works)
In the end, I think formula tends to apply more to high play courses, with low play courses probably allowed a bit more leeway while still working, because in essense, high play courses must emphasize speed of play, while low play courses can emphasize challenge or whatever.