John,
I prefer basins set in locations that prevent overland flow from crossing a fairway, approach or green, and size those by area drained. Large when needed, smaller when adequate.
I may use more basins than most, but have found whenever drainage flows more than about 250 feet it creates perpetual long, wet swales in the turf, so yes, you might see basins about that far apart on many of my designs. Technically, soils erode when water reaches 3 to 5 feet per second (depending on soil type) so sandy soils might counter intuitively get more basins than clay soils.
Of course, the number of basins increases with flat ground, a la many Florida courses we have all seen. At TPC it seemed Pete put a basin on almost perfect 80 foot (4 lengths of pipe) centers. That is because it usually works out cheaper at some point to add pipes and basins over raising one side or the other of the fairway by several feet to drain it with slope.
And, if you prefer vision, and based on the other current thread, some don't, and don't want to blind greens from golfers in the fairway, (for the most part) they can only see over 3-4 foot rises. If the minimum acceptable surface slope is 3%, the maximum distance to any catch basin is usually 300 feet, a bit above theory of placing them every 250 feet to minimize excessive water collection.
So, most holes fairways end up getting 3-5 basins minimum by these design principles. Either in the fairway, or in the adjacent rough, depending on topography.
Of course, you were probably being your own snarky self, but on the chance you really wanted to know, I typed out a longer answer. However, it doesn't come close to explain all that goes into good drainage design.