Yes, as MLevesque suggests above, a quick scan of courses that hosted the US Open from circa 1900 to c 1930 shows a goodly number of then-highly regarded and top flight courses that dropped off the map with the shift from hickory to steel -- courses that never again served as 'models' (for non-championship, local courses). Augusta, and dozens of now nearly forgotten but once highly regarded host-courses for the PGA Championship and the Western Open etc, built/coming into their own during the steel shaft era, all stayed virtually unchanged -- lengthwise -- until the introduction of titanium and multi-core golf balls; and again, almost all save Augusta dropped off the map as pro-level tests and as models for recreational courses -- with Augusta staying 'relevant' only because it added 5-times more length in the next ten years than it had in the previous sixty years combined.
Which is to say: maybe technological change is the only constant in golf, but there can be no doubt about the costs and casualties involved when it comes to gca -- neither in the past nor in the future, nor of course as we speak.
Or, to answer Erik's question from another angle: there are *no* 'great courses' that the PGA can no longer play, but only because those dozens of once-great courses are no longer *considered* 'great'.
Peter