Easy. In a picture encyclopedia, next to this subject would be various pictures of Olympic's Lake Course.
As Tom Doak wrote in The Confidential Guide: "There's very little strategy involved in the design: just the relentless pressure to drive the ball fairly long and archer-straight".
This post by Mr Wright sums it up.There's strategy and then there's strategic flexibility.
How much can the strategy vary? Unidimensional golf courses are less appealing to this group. Do you want a course that requires the same damn thing day after day? I contend that M#3 has more of it than the O. THe O has more elevation change, M#3 has more better holes (Gib will catch on fire here). Methinks there are two poster boys for this topic and they both magically appeared here, God, what a surprise.
Medinah (3,4,5,6,9,10,12,13,15, 16)is quite a bit more interesting than Olympic(2,3,4,5,9?, 11?14?16-18 oh yah sure). The O already has cypress trees and fog and it's about the same level of interest as Medinah #3. What does that say? Move O-Lake 400 yards, move M#3 200 miles? Now THAT's a measure of greatness!
Barney got this one right!
Now as for Carnoustie? It has conditioning going for it. The usual suspects. It's all a matter of definition. You could make a case to add Harbour Town to the list of strategic inflexibility. "Uh, let's see.....hit this drive under the canopy 87 feet high or lower, curving exactl;y 17 yards right to left..... hit the 179 club to this part of this cute little greenette....." Uhhhhh, errrrr, that's a little of a stretch, but that is the picture. Those inflexible requirements are what we're dealing with here.
Choose your poison.
BV