I don't think the majority of golfers bring a sporting attitude to the game.
It's such a mental grind, golf is. What beginner, or expert alike for that matter, has not cursed, maybe tossed a club or just basically melted down in one sense or another.
Thus, due to the difficulty of the game, I think the majority of public golfers, like Matt Ward mentioned, focus on other things besides the golf course architecture.
They want a "fair" course, my oh my have we heard this word enough, right???
Of course any notion of fair is sorta horse bleep, in my opinion, if some feature of a golf hole treats you unkindly the proper thing to do is chalk that up in the memory bank and heed more caution next time around.
When golf courses get diffiicult and challenging is when some people play their best, but it's also when others begin to bellyache.
A great course like Pacific Dunes is great because it's a riddle a la St. Andrews. Play to the proper spots and you can put up a good score. But these spots aren't generally obvious. It's not always right down the middle of the fairway. Middle of every green, etc.....
And this befuddles average public golfer dude.....IMHO....and drives them to not like the experience.