Ben, you don't need to test your opinions before you post. But when you say in regards to combo tees that "some courses printed two score cards for these and is annoying to staff," you're not stating an opinion. You're either stating a fact, or stating a lie. That's not a personal attack on you, it's just a real dichotomy. A relaying of historical events is either factual or it isn't. It's not unfair for someone to ask you to name an example or two when you make such a claim. As I said, I implicitly trust you since you rarely say ridiculous and unfounded things, but you'll violate that trust if you can't give an example of a course where the installment of combo tees led to the printing of multiple scorecards that annoyed staff. I've been hurt before, Ben. My trust isn't a cactus that can be ignored, it's a fern that needs to be watered and kept in the sun.
As I mentioned about Purgatory, many people whose opinions I trust consider it a good course from the proper tees. I'd like to play it sometime myself. But you're wrong about one thing. My friends who travel there to play the tips don't "keep going back." They go once, and they don't return. They're glad they did it, but they don't come back. To be fair, it's a 90+ minute drive for most of the guys I know who traveled to play the course, so it's not the easiest return trip. But I don't know anyone who has played The Fort or The Trophy Club who hasn't returned within a few years. Both of those courses are very challenging, by the way. You shouldn't skip them if you get to Indianapolis.
It's interesting that you suggest a course like Purgatory can create sustainable enjoyment, and then immediately say that losing balls discourages play. Purgatory has a reputation as a ball-eater among the guys I know who have played it. I don't deal in hypotheticals, but I'd be interested to see real data on correlation between number of lost balls in a round and average time to return to a course stratified by distance traveled. I'd also love to see which courses extract the most lost balls from players of different handicaps. I don't think such data would show Purgatory to be an easy course to play with a single ball, but in the absence of it I can't say for sure.
Just to clear things up, I'll repeat that Purgatory is a very good course from the proper tees by most accounts. I do know many people who enjoy playing from around 6500 or 6800 yards there, and a few of them have made the return trip. I suspect it stacks up quite well with the overall excellent public golf options in Indy. I just don't know many people who return to play the tips over and over again. Based on that observation, it does not appear to me that 7800 yards of golf on extremely difficult courses creates sustainable enjoyment. Did your 14 handicapper play from the tips? It sucks that he isn't a golf physiologist, but I guess his experience is still worth something.