I don’t understand why we ask or care about their opinion on architure during the tournament, particularly when someone is clearly struggling. Golf Professionals use the technique of denial in order to maintain their confidence. They blame the spectators, gusts of wind, conditions, the set-up, maintenance and even architecture in order to justify why they haven’t played better.
It’s because it's so tough at their level to keep your confidence when the difference between playing well and missing the cut can be so fine a line. Almost every professional will find something that was amiss that was not in their hands. It then makes it easier to go into the following week with all their confidence intact.
As an architect, you must understand this will happen. I think it’s inevitable someone will blame the design, unless it has long been acknowledged as an outstanding piece of architecture, then they will need another foil. The winner is likely to think the conditioning was prefect and the design very good, the player missing the cut will tell you same greens were bumpy and the design sucked.