I think that, in the end, that's what produces a reliance on templates -- the architect in question can't think outside his own box. How many other architects' courses do you think Seth Raynor was visiting in the early 20's? And how many was Jack Nicklaus or Tom Fazio seeing 5 years ago?
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From what I have learned, I would guess that Raynor saw very few other great courses beyond the ones he built with CBM. I think Raynor is unique in so many ways because he did not play the game, learned at the side of one great architect, and that architect stressed template features. And when people requested Raynor, they were, IMO, requesting a course built upon the principles that Macdonald had formulated. I disagree that Raynor could not "think outside his own box." I think he could have, if that is what he was hired to do. Look at what Raynor was able to do with Yale, by all accounts a great engineering feat, and tell me he could not have done something different IF that was what he was asked to do. People hired him for that type of box, not to build a new box...
I happen to think Fishers Island is his best course. But it is not a great course because of the templates. Rather, it is great because of it's location, excellent "links" soil, the way the course fits with it's surrounds. And because the template features are grounded in great golfing features, Raynor combined all of this into a great course. If the owners of Fishers Island had said, "Seth, we want to hire you to build a course, but we are tired of CBM's template features, do something different" I have no doubt that the reults would have been equally breathtaking.