Parts from the previous posts are very valid and contribute to the ultimate answer, but I would put it a little differently:
The influence of money and it's use of contemporary media as the moneyed distribution system is centered around using the Pro Tour as the benchmark for success. This so-called success is defined by exposure, adaptation and financial reward. The Pro Tour is unquestionably the prominent vehicle for this pursuit and thus the culprit for the mal-association for course architecture.
Sadly, the super-majority of early-modern architects readily, eagerly, acceptingly embraced this path down the rabbit hole. They designed to cater to the tour and it's demands, and quite frequently assumed their experience with the tour (as player or consultant) conveyed validation and led to financial, if not critical, success. Too many of these architects had proverbial blinders on and lacked the creative foresight to see outside their chosen box. Maybe Pete Dye's desire to challenge them with some form of diabolic humor stepped slightly outside the accepted norm, but soon enough even his designs were explicitly tailored to provide the Tour with yearly venues.
Here is where I give Tom and his peers the credit they so richly deserve insofar as they've practically ignored the tour.
Sure Gil tweaked TPC Boston, Doral and created Rio for the Tour, but he didn't bastardize his principles to do so. Neither did Bill and Ben as Kapalua wasn't designed specifically for the Tour and certainly their recent Trinity Forest design can be considered far, far outside the Pro Tour architectural box. Tom and guys like Mike DeVries and Jim Urbina have remained the purest of the bunch, launching the intellectual middle-finger at Ponte Vedra and not giving a damn about what the Tour wants or needs.
I've often wondered why the Pro Tour has the influence it does? These 1% of the 1% of the golfing population are amazing to watch, but unless they chunk, slice, hook, shank or three-jack a hole, I don't find much, if anything, in common with them. Whether they are hitting Taylor Made, Callaway, or Titleist clubs and balls means zero to me. I can't hit towering 300yd drives or check stop balls out of perfectly manicured rough. Putting is probably the only place I could even come close and that'll probably diverge and disappear for me shortly as well. Frankly, Outside of the competitive sporting drama, I don't give a shit about them.
I like watching Augusta, The Opens and even occasionally a PGA Championship as much as anyone, but the real pleasure, along with critical validation, is found when I hit exactly a shot off the bank shoulder of a Redan, or have to think my way around a series of hazards to find the line of charm.
I'd liken it to appreciating less a Jeff Koons Balloon Dog and more a Matisse. Do we really think that if today's media wasn't the gigantic money-driven machine it is, a Koons would critically find it's place next to a Matisse? I doubt it. The media has our eyeballs, and thus the assumption of our mind and voice and uses the Pro Tour to promote it's moneyed agenda. It's influence on critical architectual validation is just another false equivalence in a world full of them