I agree 100% with the contention. A designers FIRST goal should always be perfection.
My thought is that there is no 'perfect' golf course because there's no such thing as the perfect golf course audience or epoch.
Courses are built and modified over time to suit the vagaries of memberships, ownerships and benevolent dictatorships. Courses exist in a timescale which may vary from several hundred years to a mere five or ten.
Having said that, my goal in EVERY thing I design and create is that it is PERFECT for its time, its budget, its environmental responsibilty, YES, its sustainability, its cost, its IMPACT. My HOPE is that other designers do the same.
Reality however sometimes intercedes and one must simply integrate the impact of that into the final product. Life is/can be shit/glorious.
F.