Ralph, the era is very broad that you asking for. Prior to the "golden age", the golf courses were not all that great. However, during the actual golden age era, a few remarks by the men of that time come to mind:
"Now matter how skillfully one may lay out the holes and diversify them, nevertheless one must get the thrill of nature. She must be big in moldings for us to secure the complete exhiliaration and joy of golf. The made course cannot compete with the natural one."- George Thomas
"Great strategic holes primarily challenge thought. Kowledge of what to do is not immediate. It must be sought. The line of skill is not obvious but is concealed in the line of thought. This first has to be determined, and thought is fallible. Sight is rarely so. On a penal course we see what to avoid. A good shot is the mere evasion of evil. But on a strategic course we must study what to conquer. There are indeed optional safe routes that may be taken. In most cases the ball may be kicked to the hole without encountering a hazard. But THE shot must weather HELL." -Max Behr
"A first class architect attempts to give the impression that everything has been done by nature and nothing by himself, where as a contractor tries to make as big a splash as possible and impress committees with the amount of labor and material he has put into the job."- Alister MacKenzie
"All artificial hazards should be made to fit into the ground as if placed there by nature. To accomplish this is a great art. Indeed, when it is really well done, it is- I think it may truly be said- a fine art, worthy of the hand of a gifted sculptor. They should have the appearance of being made with the same carelessness and abandon with which a brook tears down the banks which confine it, or the wind tosses about the sand of the dunes."- Robert Hunter
"The bunkers on the route of the scratch player are evidently not there to punish his bad shots-some of his worst will surely escape them. There are there to call forth the best that is in him. To his weaker brethren they may be the voice of the tempter and the song of the Siren, but to him they are rowels which goad him on to acheivements that seem divine. These are the hazards that make golf dramatic. Without them there would be no enduring life in the sport, no vital interest, no delectable thrills- nothing worthwhile to achieve nor anything worthy to be conquered."- Robert Hunter
"It by no means follows that what appears to be attractive at first sight will be so permanently. A good golf course grows on one like a good painting, good music, or any other artistic creation."- Alister MacKenzie
"Do not let certain standards become an obsession. Quality, not length; interest, not the number of holes; distinction, not the size in the greens-these things are worth striving for."- Robert Hunter
"The real test of a course: is it going to live?"- H.S. Colt
"The first prupose of any course should be to give pleasure."- Robert Tyre Jones, Jr.
In my own words, in a one line sentence, the golde age architects worked with the land and any artificial hazard was an attempt to work in harmony with nature.