"Nicklaus’s courses are all predictable. He's myopic. He looks straight forward."
/Connell Barrett quotes Robert Trent Jones Jr. putting down Bandon Dunes (compared to its neighbor) and has this to say about Jack Nicklaus courses:
Nicklaus’s courses are all predictable. He's myopic. He looks straight forward. All of his greens and his [design] thoughts are very, very generic. His courses are beautiful and highly competent but predictable. The great courses are not by golf professionals, who tend to design courses that suit their games. A great course can't be for one particular level. It has to be for all players: left-handers, right-handers, Tour pros, amateurs. The courses that stand the test of time are by designers who didn't play: MacKenzie, Tillinghast, Fazio, my father, myself, my brother [Rees]. Those courses last because they're for all types of players. And they last because the idea of them woke the designer up in the middle of the night, like a muse."
It was going so well until he lumped Rees and Fazio in with MacKenzie and Tillinghast. Just having a hard time seeing them waking up in the night with design solutions on their mind.