Pat:
I'd be glad to discuss the fairway widths at NGLA with you hole by hole!
The thing I like about fairway widths at NGLA, perceived, imagined or real is they are ANYHING BUT STANDARDIZED in width as they are on so many golf courses!
The beauty of the fairway widths at NGLA is each individual hole's fairway width seems to be tailor made perfectly for all that particular hole is and can be topography-wise (slope-wise, internal contour-wise), natural feature-wise, fairway bunker-wise, green-end strategy-wise, all of which dictates maximum playability, maximum strategy in relation to the tee shot, the next shot, the approach shot to the green etc, etc.
If ever there was a golf course's fairways that are an example of why any golf hole's and golf course's fairways (given good topograhy and architecture) should NOT be of standard width, It's NGLA (of course I've never seen TOC)!
Not that the course doesn't have rough, mind you, but NGLA seems to use all the land available for fairway that makes sense to use on each hole for golf!
Of course the overriding thing about NGLA's fairways and their varied and functionally varied widths is given ideal firm and fast conditions (the ideal maintenance meld) the golf ball is going to do anything BUT stay in that fairway spot where you might aim it or land it!
And that's just the topographic holes that have a lot of slope or contour in the fairway areas and use it all with width (#2, #5, #11, #14, #16)!
How about holes that use architectural features (either straight tee shot or for approach reasons) to "strategize" all that width like #7, #8!!, #10, #17!!!, or some combination of architectural features and topography (#3, #9, #18 ). Even a few holes who's fairways really aren't wide at all (#1, #12, #15)!
Think of a hole like #17 (maybe the most unusual and off-beat hole there)! Short par 4, enormously wide fairway with architectural features all over it and a big basically flat green (for such a short hole) but using degrees of visibility and blindness with it all. I have a feeling that if you looked at that green as a circle and considered all your available tee shot angles to set up approach angles they could be 100+ degrees or more! I'm not sure I know another hole anywhere that has such a breadth of angle of approach using fairway!
One might even consider that MacDonald used fairway width on the Eden hole. It seems to be an ongoing mystery but he may have had a large amount of fairway to the right of the hole. Can you imagine trying to chip a ball off of fairway over the bunker back right from a semi-downhill lie to a green running away from you like that one?