Loved Mike's article. He is soooooooo deep! I agree a bunch.
It occurs to me that the fun golfer (I am one, blended with the environmental type....but no waterfalls, please, unless natural like at Superior National, just re-opened for you MN guys)
I doubt you could do a "all in" on one type or the other. Not to mention, one or two heroic shots would be really fun for the fun loving golfer, just not the steady diet. I have to believe the scorecard obsessed guys actually stop and look at the ocean now and then, too.
In general, I think we have all the really tough courses we need, given the emphasis on that over the years. Looking forward, I don't believe the next generation will enjoy golf the way the past one did. I think to attract golfers we will need to make most courses easier - not easy - but interesting without too much penalty.
Which, in most ways, is what the Good Doctor wrote 90 years ago when saying no one should pile up a score, and that bunkers weren't placed to penalize, but to encourage certain shots.
While slightly OT, I have always wondered if there were a way to relabel courses, as in a Tournament Course really has to have hosted a major tournament. I say add a label, because no existing course would want to be downgraded from Championship to Fun or whatever. We would need to keep adding superlatives rather than downgrade, a la Black, up from Platinum, up from Gold, up from Silver, etc.