David,
In 1930, they were playing with much less advantageous equipment, too! Hickory shafts, etc.
Chip, the equipment was "less advantageous" but not to the extent you are presenting it here. You seem to be assuming that the width was necessary then because otherwise they couldn't have hit the fairway with the equipment they were using. I don't think this was the case at all. Rather,
the width provided the golfer with options; various possible avenues of attack depending upon the pin. It might be an advantage one day to play well right near the rough for a certain pin, and then an equal advantage to play long and left near the water the next day. Or the golfer could play it safe and down the middle but leave a more difficult angle.
As for the equipment, the steel shaft was approved in 1924. But even with hickories, difference in advantage between hickory shafted irons and modern irons is often greatly exaggerated. The ball is certainly different as are the woods, but the irons? Not so much. Exact distance control and spin control maybe, but it wasn't as if Bobby Jones and company could not hit an iron in the general direction the were aiming! Yet your analysis seems to suggest that this was the case.
The fairway is now much more narrow, the greenside bunker is about 2 feet deeper and the tee box has been lowered to ground level.
The strategy is the same as before and, given the equipment of today, probably no more difficult to execute than in 1930.
The strategy was the same? You and I must have vastly different understandings of the word "strategy." The strategy now seems to be to hit the fairway, then face whatever approach is left depending on the pin. I think the strategy then was to try and hit the portion of the fairway which provided the best possible second shot! To my mind the former is not really strategic, while the latter is.