Dan, pipe dreams are all well and good, but do you really think that "short courses" are really marketable? If you were in Bandon, how much time would you spend on an executive course, no matter how well done it was? You might play it once, but at the back of your mind you'd probably be thinking that the time you were spending their could have been spent on one of the "big courses".
How much play do "short courses" at established clubs get relative to their big brothers? Atlanta Athletic Club has a really neat short course - all par 3s between 60-120 yards, some neat green complexes, really well done. You can go out there on a perfect day, and all 36 holes on the big courses will be full; you might find a handful of golfers on the short course, if that. Same thing at the Olympic Club - it's nine-hole par-3 course, on the ocean side of Skyline Boulevard, is as gorgeous as anything you could ever play. Gib could vouch for the exact details, but on my one trip out to see the small course, my friend and I had it virtually to ourselves, even though the big courses were full. Go down to World Woods - same thing. Great par-29 course, challenging and enjoyable, seemingly a perfect complement to the 36 full-sized holes; whether or not the $25 greens fee was a put-off, I don't know, but again, it was virtually empty when I went out to play it. The Grand Cypress resort had a neat pitch-and-putt course on its grounds; I raced around it, playing three balls at a time, because nobody else seemed inclined to bother. Look and see how busy the Peter Hay par-3 course is at Pebble Beach, next time you're in the area. I could go on and on (oh, wait, I already did).
And this is the problem. I myself will seek out a good short course like this, because I really, really enjoy playing them. I can go around 27 holes on a pitch-and-putt and have three closely fought matches with a buddy in the same time that I can play about 11-12 holes on a normal course. The attraction, to me, is obvious. But how do you convince the average American golfer? I'm not sure you can. He's never seen Tiger Woods play an executive course - and if he did, he'd probably be convinced (after seeing Tiger shoot 52) that executive courses were for babies. This, even though such courses are exactly what he probably needs to experience to get more fun and enjoyment out of the game. The average golfer can be just as snobbish in his own way as the average GCA.com participant can in his.
What I do know is that if pitch-and-putts or executive courses are likely to work anywhere, they're likely to work in an urban or suburban environment where demand for golf greatly exceeds supply (so much so that you can't get a tee time on a big course for love or money), and at resorts like the one Lou describes (where people go on vacation for reasons other than golf, and happen to get golf thrown in). I've been up to the Thousand Islands region of upstate New York a number of times, on the St. Lawrence River, and there are a couple of short courses in the area which do a roaring trade. Where short courses won't work is at destination resorts, where golfers come to play a particular big course or set of courses - their tee-times and patterns of play will be arranged independent of the short course's existence.
All of this is my £.02, of course. Here's a good question, though: who here would be willing to come all the way to visit Machrihanish and spend even half a day away from that acknowledged good course to experience the 4,577 yards of Dunaverty, from the members' tees? Even if I promised that you wouldn't be disappointed? You'd probably have to think hard about it, wouldn't you?
Cheers,
Darren