For mine, there is no distinction. Good golf and a good walk with pleasant enough surroundings. I lean heavily toward half par holes, mixed terrain, a bit of funk and varied greens, but that to me in way signals a match or medal course. Golf is golf. How we choose to keep score, or not, is up to each individual. Bottom line, I would not seek to design a supposed matchplay course.
Ciao
Sean
Having read all the responses I think I tend to agree with your answer that golf is just golf although Peter and Tom may have a point about courses with a low slope rating, which I assume means easy ?, being good for match play in that it keeps the high handicapper in the hole which I suppose has some merit.
Others have mentioned courses with a lot of half par holes but I'm not sure a half par hole is intrinsically any better for matchplay than a "normal par" hole. For instance most half par holes tend to be half par holes because they are either short for the par, in which case they may favour the weaker player, or alternatively long for the par of the hole in which case it might favour the stronger player. That said, does one player getting strokes not even this out ? Also, what if you have two evenly matched players ?
Some have mentioned quirk but again to me that just makes a course interesting (sometimes !) but not sure how that relates to matchplay.
Maybe where a hole is good for matchplay is where there is strategy that allows one player to perhaps play safe "and not give the hole away", and another take a risk that if successful could lead to the player winning the hole. But again does that come into play in medal play ? In other words a player can decide whether to take on the risky shot depending on how he is playing, weather conditions etc.
Perhaps the only concrete suggestion on here is Mark's point about splitting the par 3's between odd and even holes so that in foursomes each player gets a turn at a par 3, which is what the did in the old days. I wonder, when was the last time an architect considered foursomes matchplay in their design ?
Niall