The safest "moral" play for anyone giving an opinion to a potential golf owner is "Don't do it." 80% of new businesses fail before 5 years, and golf courses probably beat that average, but many fail under the first and second owners. For most of history, it hasn't been a great biz, and many courses wouldn't make it without public or developer subsidy.
Financial success depends on so much beyond the architect's control - marketing, advertising, maintenance levels, etc. etc. etc. Traditionally, architects have no legal responsibility for financial success, and I do have a clause in my agreements to that end. The old saying is the Owner owns, and the designer designs. (And the builder builds......) and frankly, there isn't enough money in architecture to take an owner's risk. Sometimes we get invited in as partners, and then we do take Owner's risk, too. (It's said every architect ought to do this at least once to see if they would design any differently when its their own money)
Technically, when I sign a contract for design, I have no opinion on the owner's business plan. And to some degree, why should I? For example, Mike Keiser had plenty of negative opinions on his business model (including from Kemper Sports, his business side guys) Then there is the old story about the college prof who gave an F to a student who proposed a Fed Ex type company, but he went out and proved them wrong.
The trend (for a long time) is to bring in separate business advisors, because the gca has an inherent conflict of interest in recommending more and more construction (to raise his fee or reputation). Whether the direction comes from the Owner and their business convictions or its business consultant, the architect's obligation is to work within the program set out for him, and give the best design possible, including future maintenance costs, views to sell houses, or whatever. Of course, that varies all over the map, so you can't say we should always do it for the least cost or easiest maintenance, but 80% of courses, this would be the goal.
Obviously, there is an overall obligation to;
Design to a level of care normal for the industry
Give honest answers on any issue, as you see them, including:
Total cost
Cost/Value relationship (i.e., the probable relationship between lower budget and bigger risk, like less sprinklers, drainage, sod, etc. when they get a 15" rain during grow in).
Advising owners not to sidestep environmental regulations or other laws
Avoid conflict of interest, like having an undisclosed financial interest in a supplier, etc.
Having said all that I had a situation just this week where the biz guy was advocating for all sorts of upgrades to enhance the possibility of raising greens fees and rounds, and I had a frank disagreement with him in front of the Owners rep, saying we ought to do less because it just seemed like there wasn't much potential in that market.
So, yes, as a practical matter I do get asked business related questions, especially as to whether renovations pay back. And of course, the answer is they often do, if everything goes right, but sometimes don't. Even then, there are no clear answers as to whether new infrastructure or new feature design helps a course survive and thrive more. I give my best answer, but other architects would give a different and equally sincere answer in the same situation, so its hard to say who is more morally correct on those kind of value judgments.
Looking back, its odd how little that was asked of new courses in the go-go years, but then again, NGF told us we couldn't build enough of them back then) And for a while, they looked right, but then they didn't.......
And, overall, I agree with Scott that if something just feels wrong in my gut, I would tend to walk away, both for moral and financial reasons. They say the best way to avoid lawsuits and bad projects is to avoid bad, inexperienced and under funded clients. The chances of any of those projects working out well is very small and you learn to avoid them.