In Beyond Good and Evil, Neitzsche wrote, "In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare." His point seems to be that words such as "great" are thrown about far too liberally. But, quite simply, not everything can be "great." There must also be a place for the abjectly bad. Yes?
Having said that, I personally believe that "greatness" is most certainly subjective (for golf courses, literature, cinema, music or otherwise). Indeed, Pine Valley may be "great" for many, but this is not to say that the local municipal course can not be "great" for others. Ultimately, yours is a difficult question to answer. Moreover, labeling some courses as "great" at the expense of others runs the risk of marginalizing the experiences and opinions of those people who may enjoy the "lesser" place, which to me seems unproductive (it may be obvious by now that I am completely averse to the rankings put forth by various publications).