John,
I'd like to raise the opposite point.
My sense is that players of the highest class are often less cognizant of the strategy of a given hole than the middle handicapper.
I remember reading an account in DG about Freddie Couples playing the Redan 6th at Shinnecock.
Every time I come to that hole, my posterior puckers. Mortals have to invent and execute a perfectly struck shot to get it anywhere within 2 putt distance.
Hard 5-iron and hope it bites? 4-iron to the right front and pray it releases . . . . but not too much. Or maybe chase a bunt 3-iron up the slope and try to gauge the distance?
Hitting the green is an enormous victory. The intricate strategies presented by that hole are as maddening for me as for anyone save complete hackers.
Yet Freddie just takes an 8-iron and hits a moon ball to 3 feet. Strategy? What strategy?
Vijay hits a 7-iron into 14 at TOC?
How can those guys even envision or understand the intricate and subtle elements of the Golden Age architects when their orientation is to play the power game - and the power game only?
An 85+ shooter has to visualize how the ball rolls along the ground far more often than Tom Huckaby or Brains, who hit towering 1-irons and can often ignore the arrangement of hazards.
I would agree that you must understand the mind of the poet to grasp the sentiment, but what score you shoot often has nothing to do with it.
Raynor was not crippled or old, and given that he worked himself to death, certainly not lazy. Yet he played golf once a year.
Tillie and Mackenzie were indifferent players at best.
Most of us could spot them 4 a side, even playing with wooden shafts. But defeating the architect who is a poor player and defeating a golf course like Winged Foot or S.F. Club are two different things.