David:
Your post combined with Carl's previous post are right on the mark.
I have always been a believer in "resistance to scoring" in terms of trying to make it hard for a good player to "go low". That's why I put so much attention on and around the greens on my courses, and that's what Carl is suffering from.
However, GOLF DIGEST's own definition of Resistance to Scoring has always been "How tough, while still being fair, does the course play from the back tees" [or something pretty close to that, I'm paraphrasing]. THAT has led a lot of people to concur that the more difficult the course (while still being fair
), the better, and there has been a lot of that going around the past 25 years in design.
I think that's also what Patrick is talking about at many clubs. Green committee moves -- new tees, tougher rough, added fairway bunkers, etc. -- affect DIFFICULTY more than RESISTANCE TO SCORING, as near as I can tell.