Cliff,
What we need here, IMHO, is for you to give us your ideal golf course. For the sake of clarity, I'll give you mine and you can use it as a template for your own.
I prefer strategic golf courses. Those courses that have hazards placed in a way in which I am constantly presented with OPTIONS. Do I crush a drive over that sand bunker or do I leave it alone? Of course, provided the golf course is truly strategic in nature, when I choose to take a RISK I will be REWARDED if I pull the shot off.
I'd like to think this is something that can be "Set Up" by the designer on every/most shots. Approaches, drives, etc...
IMHO, width gives players options. Sometimes, in the case of St. Andrews, such width allows for more than TWO options, as cited above. In the case of St. Andrews, the golfer may sometimes be presented with as many as four or five routes to the hole, each fraught with their own set of hazards to negotiate. As Dr. Mackenzie pointed out, what does it matter if a player can putt the ball all the way to the green provided he has to take ten strokes to do so?
IMHO, fast and firm give players options. As I cited in an earlier post, here in Oregon the turf gets wet. Soggy, mushy, choose your parlance. It borders on ridiculous when you find that even your driver and two iron fail to illicit one iota of roll. It's strict target golf. I'm reminded of what some of the tour players said after Pete Dye opened TPC Sawgrass for the first time. The course is a piece of cake if you can stop a five iron on the hood of a car. The sad truth is some professionals CAN. Target golf reduces the game to something akin to throwing darts. It's mindless.....no options. I guess you can choose whether or not you want to hit a big nine or an easy eight.....but you are still going to fly-it-in all the way.
The ground game offers infinitely more variety and challenge to golf. Target golf requires little creativity....the ground game demands it. Target golf makes many hazards unnecessary, as they are rarely in play except in the case of a mis-hit. Thus, when it comes to target golf, hazards are PENAL in nature....they offer ZERO strategic value. You aren't choosing to confront them for an advantage, you meet them when you make an error. You are PENALized.
I like to think of Ross' early Pinehurst #2 when it comes to understanding the ground game. It is said that in the beginning, when this course played fast and firm, the difficulty in scoring well was found in holding the greens. Ross placed his hazards in such a way that only the most PURE shots would have enough umph to clear the bunker, but enough English to still hold the green. The same concept is behind the redan. This type of golf requires the player to gauge his trajectory. This type of golf requires the player to develop "feel". This type of golf requires the golfer to temper the "action" he puts on the ball. All of this, IMHO, is infinitely more interesting than target golf.
Now, Mr. Bourland, I ask you....what is your ideal golf course? Penal in nature? Strategic in nature? You have made many strong statements regarding the course at Rustic Canyon. What I'd like to know, first and foremost, is: Can we say that Moorpark and Rustic are even comparable? Is Moorpark a strategic golf course or is it target golf? Can you play the ground game at Moorpark? Does Moorpark afford the golfer OPTIONS...off the tee, from the fairway?
I can sort of understand some of your criticisms of Rustic, as we GCA students are fickle folk, but are we comparing apples to oranges here? Even if your "knocks" on Rustic do hold water, it is possible for them to be valid points and Rustic to still blow doors on Moorpark. That's sort of how I see it, but, as I mentioned, we need you, Mr. Bourland, to describe to us your IDEAL GOLF COURSE, first.