I have a friend who is a professional comedian. He calls it show business. The thing about show business is it's 80 percent business and 20 percent show. It appears that's similar with golf architects?
I'm not sure what you're doing about getting new business but I can name a dozen architects that are waiting for the phone to ring. It's a competitive business in a tough market.
Golf course architecture could be called "Slow Business."
As to marketing, yeah its a numbers game and the harder you work it, the more work you get. That said, we all long for the occasional job that just comes out of nowhere and falls in our lap.
Generally, the cream rises to the top, but in gca there are many of us with one or more outstanding projects, and yet not a lot to show for it afterwards. The thing is, the marketing of golf courses, even the pursuit of architects is rarely focused on great design. It has always been focused more on big names, marketing potential, etc.
In some ways, you figure the mags would like to promote the next big thing, but that promotion seems to come one at a time, when most articles will focus on the next one by some bigger name architect. Naturally, they can't call every course and every young architect the "next big thing" on a regular basis or it loses its pop.
Basically, Paul, Mike or I would need more of a gimmick than a solid design to sell the next one, barring spending $1Mil on a PR firm (just kidding, you can get one for just a few thou a month)