Mike,
In theory, putting a golf course in your back yard should get the prize for encouraging golfers to play! It's putting PGA West in your backyard that might discourage it. It would be interesting to see how many championship courses are in real estate, and how many members courses are in real estate?
Let's not forget that Fazio and to a lesser degree Morrish made careers out of realizing that high end clubs, filled mostly with 50+ types, wanted a signature course that wasn't all that hard to play. No wonder in my mind why Faz dominated that high end club market. So, in any given era, its probably not possible to say there was one trend, even moresoe in the last boom where so many of us were working.
The above statement got me to wondering if guys like you and me are the biggest culprits? We didn't get as many chances as Fazio, but we were all trying to get some recognition, and the best way to do that is a course of distinction, early buzz, etc. So, instead of the top 10% being hard, all courses ended up being harder.......
BTW, as to Jones, did he ever design an easy golf course, or were all "championship courses" in the mold of his best or hardest, despite being aimed at a "course you could play every day?"
And, did that RTJ mentality (or the owners who hired him, and then us) really just take hold that a difficult course was a good course? Are we all (including golfers) in this together? I am thinking of a few projects where we had the idea of making the course somewhat easier, but as the project went on, the owner, architect, super, etc. all kept using the phrase "for a tournament......" and very specific things like widending the front of the green to create better access for average players morphed into "protecting the pin."
Maybe TV is to blame? Over time, it seems like we substitute the experience of what we see on TV golf in design, for the experience of what we actually experience on the golf course as half decent players.