With so much golf design work now focused on renovations, the architects biggest obstacles are now the ones presented by club members and committees. Yes, the very folks who hire architects with all the best intentions do throw up some of the most difficult and delicate hurdles to overcome.
While it is good that at least some of this work exists, and for that I am thankful, it still means that the architect is often defending their ideas to attorneys, accountants, farmers (at least where I do some of my work), and business owners of all stripe who all have their ideas of what needs to be done to their course. Reconciling these very disparate ideologies is a real challenge and the ones who are successful in doing this have the best chance of producing the best results for these clients.
As an example, in old-timey architecture you often found bunkering in odd spots for very good reasons, but when renovating a course where there maybe weren't any oddly-placed bunkers, like 30 yards in front of a green on a 430 yard hole, it is tough to convince these folks of the rationale for doing so. They are simply used to seeing bunkers at the landing area and at the green edge, no more, no less. So, really, it becomes a communication challenge which should be the responsibility of the architect. Just one more skill the architect must possess to survive.