I am skeptical of attempts to assign design trends [especially current ones] to cultural trends. Golf architecture is a small business and it only takes one successful project to change the trend . . . and the cultural influences on that one particular designer may not be representative of society as a whole, but only of his own individual experience.
[For example, why did I become a minimalist? Part of it was a reaction to what I saw as excessive earthmoving on the big projects of the 1980s, but part of it was having parents who grew up during the Depression . . . which I shared not with my own generation, but with the generation 10-20 years older than me, which, I guess, included Bill Coore.]
If I had to pick one thing that's influencing the direction today, I would say that the explosion of interest in golf course architecture due to podcasts, blogs, Golf Club Atlas, etc., has produced a lot of newbies who are interested in the study of golf course architecture. And since their learning curve starts with the template holes, that has led to a lot of young designers doing their own versions of the template holes [and also to the renaissance of Seth Raynor courses].
The other visual "trend" in the business is the proliferation of sand at the margins of the course. I'd love to hear a cultural reason for that. I don't have one.