Practice Areas at Clubs/Courses: A Few Questions.

So my club is undergoing a massive practice area renovation. I definitely did not think that the old practice area/driving range was bad, but I was excited about having some more short game area options, as I really enjoy going out and chipping. However, when I saw the video of what was going to be opening, I got really excited. I’ll link the video below, if you feel like devoting a few minutes to it.

My questions/topics of discussion here are twofold. First off, Keith Foster designed this practice area (he also did the restoration of one of our courses). Is it commonplace for a golf course architect to also design the practice facilities? I’ve never really thought about it, but when say Doak or C&C do a design/build are they also designing the practice area; Or is it usually just a case of parceling off a 300 yard x 300 yard area and the club does what they want with it? I suppose it could vary club to club, but I can't think of a high number of examples where the practice area seemed intentionally designed instead of just plopped down. Keith Foster has a relationship with the club, which would help to get him involved in this, but he also had a bit of legal trouble a few years back, and this might be him trying to tiptoe back in the game. I wonder how many established architects would take the job of designing a practice area?

Secondly, how important is a practice area to your overall enjoyment of a golf course? I don't know if we have any raters here, but if you visited a club and you began your visit with a trip to a practice facility that really wowed you, would it be difficult to not carry those feelings into your round and potentially inform your rating? I have visited some incredible, highly rated clubs that had terrible practice facilities, so maybe it doesn't matter? I do think that we are sort of at the beginning of clubs really paying attention to their practice facilities, many golden age designs are on tighter parcels of land and don't really have the space to devote to a massive improvement. However, at clubs that do have the space, and might have a little money to spend I wonder if we'll start to see more of this kind of thing?

Link, if interested:

https://youtu.be/E06tZk8KJoo