John C is closest to the mark. Now that he has moved to TX, he is adopting our state mindset of over regulation.
But he is right. To a degree, government (and its need to grow or at least stay busy to justify their department) dictate more and more regulations (someone please name a year when either state or federal regulations books decreased in pages or size)
Personally, I wonder if even LA needs to be licensed (although many LA's do feel they should) hair cutters, pedicurists, and several other fields that would probably yield less in benefits than it costs governments to enforce.
There is very little health, safety, and welfare concerns when designing a golf course, presuming the architect is smart enough (not always the case with Mom and Pop courses) is smart enough to know they need wetlands specialists, engineers for bridges, etc.
And, for reasons TD posts, ASGCA is always active in stopping any state that tries to put golf design under the landscape architect or engineers licensed umbrella. As far as limiting markets and raising fees, I think the "standard fee schedule" was outlawed in 1974. Engineers still seem to be in lock step, but you can always find good bargains in landscape and golf design.
BTW, Pete Dye started calling himself a golf course designer years ago, believing a designer had less liability than an architect. He was following most states that have landscape architecture licensing, but use "title" criteria instead of "practice criteria." In other words, you can do the same thing as a landscape architect, but must call yourself a landscape designer, gardener or artist, etc. And, there might still be some elements in a landscape design, like bridges, that should be engineered by someone qualified.
Whatever laws exist, some ma and pa couple will decide to build a home made golf course. While it is likely to be poor, should we stop them from trying out their dream? Some (on all sides, govt., GCA, GCBuilders, etc.) would like to try.
But, its a free country, no? Unless there is a clear need to protect for the common good, it probably isn't necessary to regulate. There really is no pat answer on the need for qualifications, state regulations, etc. If they remove a quarter acre of wetland, is that hurting the world? 25 Acres, well maybe. But any regulation has to be one size fits all, so there will always be cases that "prove" the need for regulation or de-regulation and never will there be agreement.
Given current reductions in regulation going on, the question is how much is too much? In golf design, it should be a pretty low bar.