Wouldn't it be safe to say that when one looks at or mentions the so-called "Modern Age" of architecture they should break that down into a few categories just as the front of Cornish and Whitten does?
After WW2 the so-called "Modern Age" of architecture was ushered in--particularly RTJ, then Dick Wilson and a number of other slightly lesser known architects all who basically built courses that were becoming more aerial oriented in design, much larger in scale, longer, more overall earth movement on entire sites, on the mid-bodies of individual holes etc.
That was one category of the "Modern Age" perhaps the first or earliest category beginning in the late 1940s and moving into the late 1960s and 1970s.
And then along came Pete Dye and took things (for a time) in another direction from the earlier category. To really understand TPC and HT (very different courses from each other though) is to really start to understand Pete Dye and his own unique influence on architecture, particularly the direction of the so-called "Modern Age" itself.
Pete is certainly a great talent, a man and architect who really did march to his own drummer and did things very differently from any before him. Both TPC and HT are real examples of that--the first and perhaps best examples of that.
Much of it seemed to be a harking back to some of what interested him during his extended time in Scotland with Alice.
One might have thought Pete would have been most interested in the naturalism of many of those Scottish courses but Pete might tell you he became just as interested in the rudimentary architecture of Scotland (the rudimentary man made features of early Scottish architecture).
But clearly Pete put his own spin on these things with his own applications in architecture. The small greens of HT departing from the large scale of RTJ and Wilson and the first part of the "Modern Age". Things such as the prevalent use of his famous railroad ties as a atavistic application of things like the rudimentary European stark wooden sleepers!
But one should never really look at Pete as what some think as a minimalist in architecture--like the minimalist look of some of the European courses. Pete could be a constructor bigtime--Pete always loved machinery and its possiblities but with many innovative and original ideas or retooled ideas--ie spectator mounds, island green, waste areas, great diagonals, balanced and/or staggered strategies but pretty much aerial though--a constant sign of the "Modern Age". Pete certainly could produce an entire golf course out of an apparent wasteland though---there's little doubt of that!
I think of Pete Dye as almost his own era--just as apparently C&W do. He's an original--he looked back into earlier architecture with some things he did--he looked forward with other things he did--and he was wholly original on other things.
Maybe because of things such as all this a course like TPC is one of the most important courses of the last fifty years, but personally I think there are others that challenge it for importance like Sand Hills, Pacific Dunes, perhaps Friar's Head but probably not amongst such a broad base of golfers like Pete and his early courses.
Why?
The real big difference in considering the "importance" of Pete's courses like HT and TPC over the others is that just like almost all courses or architects that are considered important or influential--the courses of Pete Dye back then like TPC or HT were the tournament sites that the world of golf saw so much of. That alone is naturally going to have an influence on what more people think is "important" as much or more than just the architecture! TPC and HT were very important departures from the way things were going in architecture in their time but not any more so than Sand Hills, in my opinion. But this is probably just strictly in an architectural context as again, the world of golf saw Pete's courses so much more because they were top tournament sites--and that alone will have a much greater influence (apparent importance).
In a real way Pete Dye also managed to do something that another great architect, Alister MacKenzie, did to put himself on the map---they both managed to create a good deal of controversy with what they did--and that too always draws attention.