I am not allowed to discuss this because I am a Flynnophile  

If I was allowed to discuss, I might ask if these are the green fees as a non-guest of the resort or if part of a package.  If I wasn't a Flynnophile, I might mention that both courses just underwent restorations or renovations and that may be a part of the issue.  Hey, at least it isn't $450 as for Pebble Beach    

I am relatively certain that the prices quotes above are for non-hotel guests.  The Homestead actually has somewhat "reasonable" packages available for mid-week stays.  I'm taking my father down there tomorrow for his 60th birthday.

And Sunningdale's day ticket is now 235GBP - well over $450 - but at least you can take a pull cart.

This is such a continuing issue here - how does someone who can't pay or justify paying $400 get exposed to high quality golf courses? It's a rhetorical question but I'm just left shaking my head.

Add it up and that's about $28,000,000 annual revenue from one 18 hole golf course.

Garland,

Actually I didn't intend my comment to mean that I would pay that for private golf.  I don't care if it is an NGLA, Shinnecock, Cypress, Indian Creek, whatever.  I would never pay that much to play golf.  
However, I do belong to a private club and if I thought about how much it was to belong and divide by the number of rounds, it might well be around the levels we are discussing.  That's why I tell my wife I have to play more and more golf    So I actually meant to refer to a membership at one's own private club could be justified.  After all, there's a lot more to such a membership than golf; well, hopefully so...and I don't mean tennis, swimming, skeet and squash.  I also mean fellowship, food and friendly competition.

I'm heading down to the area thursday and just called to arrange for some tee times.  In passing, I asked what the greens fees were at the Cascades....the reply was "walking or cart?"  I replied, "walking".  "$275"....are you kidding me?  Old White at the Greenbrier is not much better at $225.  Unreal.

This is where the game is going wrong.

We stayed there and I think we paid $175 last year at Greenbriar and about the same at Cascades. Old White was an excellent renovation and well worth it, so was Cascades as well as their steakhouse

Bill,
St. Andrews is an outlier because its more like a municipal course than a private (for-profit) entity.  From an economic standpoint, it only needs to make enough money to support itself.  Pebble Beach and others have to generate profits.  Ueberroth, Eastwood, Palmer, et al did not spend that kind of cash to break even every year.  I have to fess up that I played Pebble last year, but it was on someone else's dime.  I assume that much of the play at Pebble is once-in-a-lifetime players or those on corporate expense accounts.    

Wayne,
You wisely point out that those of us with a membership at private clubs likely pay as much per-round as these higher end resorts are charging.  I played my first round of the year in March and the first question my wife asked me when I got home "How was that $1,000 round of golf?"  This coming from someone who would gladly drop even more than that on a handbag if she knew her husband wouldn't hit the roof.

DC -

The golf packages are not much better. When my family went to the Greenbrier the golf was over $200 a head and we had 4 foursomes playing. Crazy stuff. They are certainly courses I enjoy playing more than once to fully understand them, but it is tough to justify that kind of outlay. I will tell you this, they are A LOT LESS than Sea Island. A lot.

For the many years I have been going to The Greenbrier, yes, I had to pay too.