It's part of our history.
When I started playing, 100 courses played was an amazing feat that only a handful of guys I knew had done. It was rare because there were seven courses in Missouri. I think there were less than 1,000 in the U.S. There were two courses in St. Louis. Unless you wanted to play the same 36 holes of golf forever, you drove. The disc golf road trip was just something we did. It beat the Hell out of playing the same 36 holes over and over.
Did it make me any better? Nope. Not a bit. Was getting any better the reason I traveled? Nope. Had nothing to do with it. We just traveled around for fun. Went to some places I'd never been before, threw some Frisbees, ate some White Castle, slept in some cars, crashed on some couches of dudes I barely knew, got up and threw more Frisbees. It's what disc golfers do. Good disc golfers just get away with throwing the Frisbees fewer times.
I think it's cool that it's still a big part of disc golf. I mean, I traveled around in the 90's and topped out at 30-something courses played. We ran out of courses, made the same trips multiple times because there were no new course to go see, that sort of thing. Now it seems like there are always new courses, always more place to go in a reasonable driving distance. You can get 200, 300 course played if you keep it up. That's awesome.
The flip side is that people have more options near home, so they don't HAVE to road trip to avoid playing the same 36 holes over and over. They still do, though. I think it's awesome that people can hit 1,000 courses played. I think it's awesome that somebody who has a dozen courses within an hours drive of their house would keep driving and play 200-300 courses. As much as disc golf has changed (and it has changed a lot) it's refreshing that we are still wasting fossil fuels in search of baskets.
tl;dr: Lighten up, it's what we do.