JNC,
No offense intended, but your reply demonstrates my point exactly; namely that golf is the only game where we want the pros to more resemble the amateurs.
Off the top of my head, I'd say that college baseball, football, and basketball all play by the same rules as the professionals. Exceptions could be made for aluminum bats (which this year have been modified to play more like wooden bats) in baseball, the width of hash marks, and various little rules such as two feet in,etc. in football, and the three point arc in basketball. So golf does not have that market cornered. And in all of these sports the pros are much better than the amateurs, across the board. No one is saying that because of the excellence at the pro level vis a vis the amateur level that mounds should be raised, fences moved, baskets raised, courts widened, or fields lengthened so the pro game more resembles the one the amateurs play.
Basically, who cares what the pros shoot on tour? Its a competition to see who shoots the lowest score that week. The players earn the right to play at that level by being better than 99.999999% of the golf population. They should hit it farther, straighter, closer, with more spin than everyone else. They should recover, get up and down, and putt better than everyone else. (BTW, this all leads to a lower score).
I just don't see it as the problem that you do. Why can't we celebrate how unbelievably good they are? We bitch at mistake filled games/teams in the NBA, MLB, or NFL, and demand better, yet we rejoice when the winning score at the US Open is +4 or higher. And IMO the only way to get a high enough winning score is through contrivance. Witness Carnoustie, Winged Foot circa 1974, Shinnecock's 7th, Olympic's 18th.