Thankfully, Matt, not more than a handful of people noodle "mountain golf" (maybe "Alpine" is better?) as much as you and a few others. Certainly I've noodled it, and even written about it, ripping apart the nuances of getting up steeper grades and how this might best be accomplished.
A few thoughts; then I'll listen to comments:
1. Alpine golf can be very exciting and is certainly an American extension of the movement of the game away from linksland and into the hinterlands. Indeed, it is also a morph-ism away from trying to re-create links-ish terrain at inland sites, which is all too common, even among many great courses. This movement — in true American spirit — knows no bounds. It has taken golf to deserts, farms, inland river valleys and, yes, mountainous terrain.
2. None of the above "new" terrains for golf were a part of golf's original and "ideal" land form, but the ideals of golf are not written to end at any particular point. Golf, by virtue of its "cross country" nature, is about playing from one point to the next, across challenging obstacles. It is a simple concept, but all too often confused with one's particular idea of "ideal" landform on which this is to occur. The Matt Ward ideal may be as a result of his endless pursuit of "ideal" golf, comparing one course to another to another to another...etc.
3. At Bel-Air it was generally accepted that Thomas was crazy, even foolish to consider a golf course. Yet, despite classic design it integrates canyons and terrain while overcoming the ups and downs. Motorized golf carts accomplish the same end result at many other layouts.
4. I have always maintained that modern machinery and technology — even the smallest of GPS receivers to accurately give bearings and elevations — would have been of tremendous interest to MacKenzie, Hunter, Tillinghast, Raynor, Banks, etc. To wit, take MacKenzie's great drive to bridge the rocks behind Cypress Point's No. 18 tees. MacKenize embraced technology, yet he lacked it during his tenure on earth. The comments made by early golf course architects about mountainous layouts were done so in a time devoid of common cart usage, heavy equipment usage, population bursts to inland reaches, or the now-common resort model of seasonal recreation.
5. The biggest mistake in Alpine Golf design is trying to make things too long or to try and overcome the land. Rather, more of such layouts should occasionally go against the grain: uphill or side-hill.
No doubt many who frequent these pages will pooh-pooh Alpine Golf as it does not match that period of the game when they believe the ideal was reached — this, more specifically, is the period after which golf was played through the streets of St. Andrews to the front doors of its dark alleys, and before Americans (in general) took hold and embraced the game.