Tom,
You are absolutely right. Some states regions would fight over. West Virginia--no one wants us. Mid Atlantic? No coastline. Southern? Seceded from Virginia during the Civil War. Mid West? Too many mountains. I guess the only place we really belong is in Appalachia which is a region that pays no mind to state borders as it extends from Alabama to New York.
May years ago when I took a course on the history of the English language, there was a diagram showing the major speech areas of the United States. Where I live, at the base of the northern panhandle, four different speech regions converged. Midwestern, Mid Atlantic, Appalachian, and I guess what one could call Pittsburghese. Much like Switzerland, to which we have been compared, we are strongly influenced by the surrounding regions. Of course in Switzerland's case, it's Germany, France and Italy, and we're not quite that lucky cuisine wise.
And as for golf architecture, well...what the Saturday Evening Post infamously (if you are a Mountaineer)said nearly half a century ago about our economics "Poverty Amid Splendor" applies.