I'm amazed at how many learned people, even on this site, read "ground game" and think the writer means someone can just top the ball around the course, all day long, and really not even play golf, just an enlarged version of putt putt.
On the larger issue raised, there are many excellent posts - Thomas Dai, Shivas, Jason's, Sean's. The only thing I'll nitpick out of Ivan's opening post is the word "consistently", and I will mostly just apply it to casual golfers.
I think the game of your basic casual golfer (of which on this site there are precisely zero) is highly misunderstood. The very notion of average drive is almost meaningless. When your shots have such a wide distribution, the average of them means very little. As such, the issue isn't so much the carry as the consequences of a missed carry: is it water or some other death penalty hazard, or is it merely rough or a bunker that can be negotiated by most levels of golfers?
If someone wants a course that makes no effort at pleasing the casual golfer, that's fine by me. But don't be shocked when it doesn't get enough play for the 1st or 2nd owner to make a go of it. I can make a 230 yard carry pretty easily, with more than 1 club in my bag, but I don't generally seek courses that emphasize that element of the game.
Lest anyone think my post applies only to my game, I will offer the following anecdote, and of course it's based on something I witnessed in person at Oakmont. It was during the playoff for the last match play spots in the 2003 US Am. Standing down with the guys teeing off on #11, I saw a competitor - and this is someone PLAYING TO GET INTO MATCH PLAY AT THE US AM, not a high handicapper, not even a low handicapper, a PLUS handicapper - top his tee shot. It actually went about 50 yards and ended up in the narrow stripe of grass that is mowed down for golfers walking off the tee. He managed to get his next shot up to wedge range and knock it close enough that, when it rattled out and he bogeyed and was eliminated, it was actually pretty exciting. Imagine how much less interesting it would have been if there were a pond carry of merely 100 yards off the tee, a joke for any low handicapper. He'd have dropped and been eliminated when he didn't hole his approach shot.
And that's on a course that is widely renowned as one of the toughest in the world for the best golfers. Somehow, it is able to accommodate all levels with virtually no true "forced" carries.
All the talk of average carry distances and percentages and all that stuff completely miss the point of golf, imho: here to there in as few strokes as possible. Doesn't say anything about how, just how many.