Forrest;
As much as I'd love to look at a golf COURSE as 18 separate holes, the terms are incongruous.
The term "course" implies something of a contiguous, connected nature, which should have some degree of integration and natural flow. To have the golf "course" continually broken up with "non-golfing" related ground (i.e. houses, wetlands, property divisions, large climbs or long descents) does have a negative impact on the course, pure and simple, and despite the fact that each individual hole might have quality within it.
The term "routing", as I'm sure you know, talks about how well those individual holes are interconnected, along with with how well the entire property is utilized for golfing purposes. A routing that is continually broken up with lengthy non-golf divisions ultimately brings the quality of the routing into serious and justifiable question.
Once again, I'm not disputing the reasons why this is sometimes, and even often necessary. I'm simply bemoaning that fact as well as saying that such a golf course can be good, but can never be considered a great routing by definition.