Lloyd,
Your comments and those of Pete Dye may not reflect smarts as much as it reflects confidence in their swings or ability to handle pressure.
Jim Colbert told me that the few times he got into the Masters, he would rope hooks around the corner on 13 in all the practice rounds, but when the tourney started, he found he shifted, at the last second, his aim out to the right and made all sorts of swing contortions to avoid going left. And, it got worse each day as making the cut, or making the top 16 raised the stakes.
And, Jim was a pretty good pressure player of more modest natural talent. He was also good at course management and felt he was one of a few (Faldo also being one) that tried to play all the shots, rather than rely on the Nicklaus fade, for example, to max out his chances.
He always felt that the wide fw helped his type of player, even though the longer bombers had a little more breathing room. I do recall he liked the idea of sharper fw contours in the longer landing areas.