Robin,
Your point about the clubhouse getting lost with the hotel "back of house" function sounds familiar.
I was at a meeting recently discussing "good design". Most people, some architects included, seemed to believe that good design costs money. However this fails to realise that a lot of issues regarding good design, such as orientation, position of key functions etc if done correctly from the outset can lead to good design even if there isn't the money in the budget for fancy cladding etc!
My suspicion (from an architects point of view) is that the layout of these facilities is either driven by the hotel operator, or a specific desire of the client, the golf course architect, or are an after thought. If everybody's needs and aspirations are pulled together into one coherent brief, it shouldn't be too difficult for an architect to get something that functions better than most of the bad examples being discussed here.
Having said that I still feel that hotel and clubhouse are best as 2 distinct functions rather than combined.
Cheers,
James