Tim,
There are some strains more hardy than others, often at the expense of putting quality. Top courses usually select for putting, and live with the maintenance stresses, whereas lower level courses select for durability.
Jason,
As far as I can tell, its total SF. Each cup location (generally considered a 8' diameter circle around a space flat enough for a cup takes up about 50 SF. Private clubs might get away with as little as 6 pin positions, most supers would like 14 because thats how many days it takes the turf to fully recover (in growing season, under heavy play).
While that is only 700 SF of real cup space, if you keep pins 10 ft from the green edge, plus add a 3'collar, the minimum size green is, for me, about 4000 SF, and more if you add in transition slopes, random contours, etc.
That said, I have seen greens do better when the wide part is on the cart path side, since it spreads traffic but overall, you have to figure all areas of the green eventually get random, but evenly distributed traffic. The bigger stress factors are shade and traffic.