In Pat's current 'handcuffs' thread Tom D responds that he has, occasionally been asked to 'tone down' his designs by the employer.
Do any of you architects out there recall any projects when it became apparent that the employer wasn't interested in what you consider your design strengths, and they had effectively employed the wrong designer? (Tom -  you have mentioned the Legends, I think, in this respect)
I appreciate that like most of the rest of us, most of you have to work for a living, so if there is only one commission on the table, you'd want to take it.

Obviously no need to name names.

And, I've been thinking about this for a while now - do you think your work would be better, or more enjoyable, if there were intermediary entities, GCA consultants so to speak, that potential employers went to before meeting with GCAs, who might be able to point them in the direction of the type of designer they actually wanted, rather than the last 5 they had read about in Golf Magazine?

When interviewing for jobs recently (with Rod Whitman), I've found myself thinking: the prospective client is interviewing us, but we're kinda interviewing the prospective client too.

In other words, just as Tom infers above, the first few meetings with a developer gives the golf architect a sense about the working relationship with may or may not ensue.  

The short answer is its a matter of degrees, not always black and white. Most of us are comfortable working in a range.  Sure, its possible that a low budget client might go seek out a Nicklaus signature,  and a few others have chosen low budget gca's or newibies for very important comissions, with mixed results. But those things usually sort themselves out early. Sometimes they don't.

Just as not all golfers don't really care about architecture, not all owners do either, and are making selections blind, and without true research of the best work of each candidates.  (I was once in an interview process where the committee refused to go see the work of the architects, saying it might unduly influence their decision!)  I have been in numerous interviews where the end result was that they chose someone who I felt was the worst possible candidate for them.  

Personally, I like it when a client challenges me to do something with a twist or outside my normal comfort range. I usually end up with 55-75 bunkers on my couress, but have a current client (two actually) who have imposed 40 bunker limits.  As a result, I have come up with some neat ground contour ideas (I think, but they all haven't been built yet) as alternatives.  Even if these two courses don't rank as my best ever (and I am not willing to concede that quite yet) I have been forced to learn/add something new to my architectural "bag of tricks" which will make me a better architect in the future.

The challenge of thinking of something a new and different way is on the whole better than being given a free hand in some ways. As my father often said, some guys have 20 years experience, and others have 1 year experience 20 times over.

Lloyd:

There are a couple of fairly established "golf consultants" who have often helped clubs find and hire a golf architect ... they also offer feasibility studies for new courses, consulting on the practicalities of new clubhouses, etc.

It would be hard for any such person to be universally respected, though, since for every new golf course there is one happy architect and several unhappy ones who think they should have gotten the job.