John:
OK, I've had more coffee, so here's my take...
I thought of three courses here in Wisconsin -- Lawsonia, Spring Valley (a Langford/Moreau near the WI/IL border), and Whistling Straits.
For me, Lawsonia represents nearly an ideal experience in golf and golf architecture. Not perfect (stupid tree fronting a fairway bunker on #15), but even its minor flaws aren't enough to detract from the experience. It's like listening to "Kind of Blue," or watching "Casablanca" -- the overall experience is just so good and enjoyable and fun that I can easily dismiss any detractors as silly. It restores my faith in what golf and golf architecture should be.
Not long ago, I played Spring Valley, the very definition of a hidden gem, a largely untouched Langford course that's a blast to play. It can be frustrating, in some regards -- the greatly reduced green size on the Sahara-like short par 4 14th diminshes the hole considerably, the elongated par 5 2nd feels forced (originally a par 4), the pace of play can be slow if the starter sends out a foursome of undisciplined hacks in front of you. But my two rounds there recently cost $15 (total; it's the fall all-day rate); its maintenance meld was absolutely ideal, reflecting the dry conditions we've had here in Wisconsin this fall (and far better than the highly touted University Ridge near Madison, which somehow managed to play soft and wet despite a month's absence of rain in these parts); and the course in my several years of playing it has never tried to be anything other than what it is; it has the least pretense of any "good" course I've played. Yes, it could be better, but I'm grateful that I live close enough to play it fairly regularly. It reminds me of my teenaged sons -- sometimes aggravating beyond belief, but I wake up every morning thankful they are healthy and active and reasonably well-behaved.
I have often defended WStraits here on this board, notably during the controversial PGA this past summer. To me, it accomplishes what it set out to do -- provide a stern but fair test to the world's best golfers in major tournaments. Its architecture strikes me as both fun and challenging -- say what you will, the eight holes along the lake are solid tests of golf, and look really neat. Sure, it can be arbitrary -- any course with thousands and thousands of bunkers is likely to be at some point -- but the game has always had its arbitrary elements, and you need to look no further than The Old Course to see why (and how being arbitrary is a good thing). Yet much of WStraits I just find frustrating -- its price structure of $300+ rounds, its "busy" look, its too-many forced carries, its fawning attempts to be an Irish links on soil hardly conducive to such, its utter irrelevance to its surroundings. It's the Old Testament of golf courses.
Maybe, as Bogey suggests, faith ought to be something we struggle with. I struggle with my advocacy of WStraits; to this day, I have yet to play it (I've walked it). My faith in proper golf architecture and golf as it should be played is challenged at Spring Valley, because it could be better, but I never leave the course without a smile of my face. Like my faith, it's not perfect, but it strives to be something good. Lawsonia, to take your faith analogy perhaps a bit too far, is probably Easter Sunday.