One of the things I always wondered about was why two people could look at the same putter with one guy loving it and the other hating it. Lately I came across some analysis of this. It comes down to visualisation (the process of creating internal mental images). People can be classified into three groups, poor, good and great visualisers.
Poor visualisers can be helped greatly with alignment aids on the putter and ball (think mallets with lines), great visualisers should avoid aids and lines (think bullseye and blade putters), good visualisers can go either way, aids, lines or no aids, lines.
So we can see why some golfers would love a blade putter and some the aid covered TM Spider. Their instinct or experience tells them they could putt well the putter. We can also see why some people advocate the line and others hate it.
While seeing this analysis, I started wondering has it been applied to architecture either knowingly or unknowingly? It's common enough to hear of golfer speaking of a course which doesn't fit his or her eye. One aspect that could be used as an example is the aiming bunker, where it is advocated to place a bunker which is out of reach to indicate the line of play. Where others often argue why does a golfer need to be shown where to go. Could this be an example of the difference between the two visualisers?
Could width be another difference between the two? The poor visualiser, who needs help to be shown which line to take, would be a fan of narrow lines of play where the great visualiser who needs less help is a fan of width. Could it be that the architect who instinctively or actually knows this builds variety throughout the course whereas the architect who doesn't know this builds courses along the lines of his or her visualisation preferences? Of course people involved in design would tend to have great imaginations, so should favour variety whereas a green committee chair mightn't and be an advocate narrowness over width.