Grant,
Great question! I once wrote that a design should imagine a foursome of decent players, whose primary game strengths were (in order) accuracy, finesse, and distance, with the fourth member of the foursome a "D" player, and try to design at least some holes for each type of player.
Not sure that is exactly the sound bite you are looking for. Of course, as a gca working primarily in the public course sector, it is a question I have grappled with, sometimes discussing it with the Tour pros I have worked with, since they claim to be concerned, but often had no clue.
For those who thought about it, substitution of grass hazards for sand was one primary technique. If your good players find the Fw chipping swales harder, and your average ones find them easier, I think most people (except for strict anti-socialists) would say that is using architecture to somewhat level the playing field is a good thing. That has always been the goal of making courses playable and entertaining for all.
Also, while some here lament the relatively small use of the carry bunker (either fw on tee shot or green front bunkers) I believe them falling out of favor was really for similar reasons - good players rarely come up short, while average ones do at least 25% of the time, and if you count slight mis hits, maybe 75% of the time. Thus, frontal bunkers punish average players while not really challenging good ones. So, why use this kind of feature?
On approach shots, good players spray shots within a 10-12% of distance range, vs. 15-16% for average players, so the lateral hazards (or any type, but especially sand which is 4X harder for average players) work for both level of players. Placing sand bunkers front right especially, can kill average players. So, why use this kind of feature? Sometimes, sure, but often, chocolate drop mounds, mounds, fw cut, steep banks, green roll offs, etc. make more sense (right up until the point that it becomes obvious to those golfers that you are being totally condescending, and then, those features fall out of favor.)
Right side sand bunkers should rarely be on the front third of the green, under this theory, and should almost never extend much past the front edge of the green. Every time I play one of my courses, on almost every hole, if I had just pulled those bunkers back a bit, one less player would have been in the bunker. No kidding, really. The hard part architecturally is that pulling those bunkers forward a bit really makes them stand out visually in many cases.
Of course, playability is not just hazards, but the targets themselves. Average players at 225 (and 16% spray) need about 36 yard fw, so making them at least that wide in their prime LZ makes sense, perhaps narrowing them further to 30 yards down the fw. For that matter, any tee shot that ends up more than 200 yards from the green has been punished enough, since the average guy has taken themselves out of range of reaching the green in two, so why place trees and deep rough there? Or, anything but reasonable length rough, rather than natives, sandy waste, water, etc.? Or, for that matter, "fore" bunkers placed mostly for looks, but easily carried by better players?
Ditto for greens. The USGA Slope guide bases their green size recommendations on 2/3 of A and D players hitting those percentages of width and depth (still about 10-12% for low handicap and 20-22% for lesser players) so generally (and with a few exceptions, nothing wrong with an occasional (slightly) smaller target calling for extreme accuracy) greens ought to be big enough to hold those shots. I once statistically studied what it would take to up that to a more logical 3/4 of average golfers and it expands quite a bit, beyond practical sizing. And for all 4 D players in a group to hit the green? Montana!
And, of course, those target sizes are probably for greens that slope back to front, to help hold shots, another idea that became standardized, perhaps too much, but probably should be used in the majority of cases, with side slope and reverse slope greens being used only for a change of pace.
But, I digress. Basically, while now trashed as outdated, the post WWII design era focused on playability for all (other than RTJ and Wilson) and yes, the design became a bit more boring. But, not all of that due to playability. After all, as TD points out, Mac was all in favor of courses that didn't pile up a score. A lot of grass makes for a nice park like setting, which most find quite pleasant. And, to me, it would seem dealing with all types of hazards occasionally would be more interesting over a round, season, or golf career, than always ending up in sand bunker on yet another "bunker left, bunker right" kind of green.
As always, just trying to synthesize some of the group think that exists in the industry, if not around here!
