the concept of strategy being considered by the average player.....
I think a lot of players have something they would describe as "strategy" in mind but it's almost never anything like what we talk about on this forum.
About 80% golfers think only about where they
don't want to hit it. Put a water hazard or intimidating bunker in their line of sight and their only thought it "Don't hit it there".
Of the other 20%, maybe 80% of the remainder are capable of thinking about where's the best place to hit it "Hit it there" but can't take into account the results of a slightly missed shot.
So now we're down to about 1 golfer in 20 who can and does actually think about where they're going to play their next shot from "Hit it there OR miss it over there" and that's the beginning of real strategy.
And I'd say only a very small minority of those 1-in-20 actually think about tacking their way around a hole in the grand GCA Discussion Group style. To begin with, most of those 1-in-20 who can think strategically tend to be pretty good players and the strongest of them just play a point-to-point aerial game. No tacking needed. So we're left with a tiny fraction of a fraction, something less than 1% in my estimation, of all golfers who:
1) Have any interest in thinking about "Play this shot to here so I can play that shot to there"
2) Plus sufficient skill to actually do it often enough to matter
3) But not capable of blowing the ball over all the trouble and playing straight at their ultimate target most of the time