After thinking about those routing evaluation tools on the way in, it occurs to me that these only can measure routing balance or variety - dogleg, wind direction, uphilld downhill, etc. The preparing gca must be confident that those, say, dogleg right holes are GOOD dogleg right holes for the balance becomes a deciding factor.
I suppose you could create charts to measure:
Number of holes requiring fw earthmoving (lower number would indicate a more natural routing)
No. of valley, plateau, cross slope L and R, rolling fw, etc. for variety
Uphill/downhill/level holes (or blind shots, generally lower number of uphill holes is better)
Lineal Feet of walk (or cart path) between greens and tees, (lower number is best )
Number of Uphill Walks from green to tee
Doglegs with and against prevailing wind
Long and Short Holes with and against the prevailing wind
Holes playing into the sun
Tight spots or potential safety issues
Number of OB holes
Hook OB vs Slice OB
Number of Natural FW and/or Green Hazards
Total Land Use (once on an oversized site, I had an associate "pull in" a routing to a similar land form, reasoning that the extra path, irrigation, grassing expense on the more expansive routing didn't justify it)
Number of returns near clubhouse (a la Riv 2)
Number of Creek Crossings/Bridges (lower generally better for reducing forced carries, play, and its certainly cheaper!)
etc., etc., etc. While all of those would have a place, and it would be easy to do in an Excel spread sheet, I can recall times when I did a series of technical evaluations and still picked a routing intuitively that may have ranked somewhere off the top. (I actually started, but rarely use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of certain aspects of feature design, which I called "The Mother of All Spreadsheets, so you know what era it was concieved!)
BTW, the typical question I face in routing evaluations (to select one, not after its built) is whether to go for one great hole that requires some average ones to get to that spot, or to use a routing that is more solid overall. At Cypress, Mac had good land going into 15-16-17, but not so good coming out. Do you think he considered alternatives to create a better 18th hole? Probably, and then decided that stretch of holes would be worth it!
I'm not sure the idea of the "best" routing is anything more than a value judgement. So, if you like the course, its probably a very good routing.