Does anyone wish technology had never improved??

[Jordan Wall]

That way courses would remain as they once were, at least in most aspects.

Waddaya guys think??

[RSLivingston_III]

Or....
How about courses have to be played with the same era equipment as the course itself?
On the North Berwick thread, someone was complaining the First hole there is a Mid-Iron and Wedge. Well it is NOW. Play it with 1920's era clubs or even 1960's, it will give you an entirely different perspective. You might even have an entirely different regard for what the Redan really is.

[paul cowley]

I'm with you Ralph.....always.

[Tom_Doak]

Jordan:  I wish it hadn't, just so we could eliminate that whole line of threads from GCA.  We're wasting our breath.

Ralph:  I thought it was in the 1960's that one of the Scottish pros hit a putter off the tee on the first at North Berwick in competition, followed by a 5-iron to the green.  Maybe that was the seventies.

[Marc Haring]

I thought it was in the 1960's that one of the Scottish pros hit a putter off the tee on the first at North Berwick in competition, followed by a 5-iron to the green.  Maybe that was the seventies.

Oh the evils of alcohol

[Chris Kane]

Jordan:  I wish it hadn't, just so we could eliminate that whole line of threads from GCA.  We're wasting our breath.

I couldn't agree more Tom.  The same thing has been said over and over again, and its not strictly on-topic anyway.  The anti-technology argument is perfectly constructed by Geoff Shackelford on his website - he says it better than any of us here.  

[cary lichtenstein]

I love my driver and other than that club, I don't see how technology has affected my game.

I don't want to sacrifice that.

What is ridiculus, is that as the clubhead spreed goes up, the ball goes  expodentionally further (nice spelling) .

[Jin Kim]

No.

[Doug Siebert]

I think its important to distinguish between technology improvements that were primarily driven by a desire to make equipment less expensive and/or more consistent versus making the game easier:

cheaper/more consistent:
featherie -> gutty (which I believe DECREASED driving distance)
gutty -> haskell
hickory -> steel
forged -> cast
balata -> surlyn
persimmon -> steel (this really belongs on both lists)

easier:
sand wedge
cavity back
graphite shafts (if you believe more distance = easier)
square grooves
Ti/big ass drivers
multilayer balls

Other than the SW, all the changes on my second list have taken place in the lifetimes of most of us reading this, while most changes on the first list occurred before our birth.  Its not technology per se that's a problem, its using technology for the sake of making the game easier.

And we aren't remotely close to being done yet regardless of the what some former USGA officials believe -- we haven't begun to tap the potential technology has to make the game easier just via the shaft, even if the clubhead and ball technology was frozen in time.

Jordan may look back at 2006 with fondness as a time when skill really meant something in golf after he plays 18 with his clubs that have shafts that weigh 5 grams and have been computer designed and manufactured in 2 minutes while he waits based on exact measurements of his swing, to accelerate through impact like a bullwhip and perhaps mitigate the effects of swing flaws that would otherwise tend towards heel hits and a bit of a slice.

[Tom_Doak]

Doug:

Years ago I thought that if square grooves were really that good, then they would drastically reduce the cost of golf because fairway conditioning could go back to slightly shaggy and brown and chemical-free.

Unfortunately, American golfers didn't pick up on that aspect.

[Bryan Izatt]

Tom,

Are we wasting our breath because we can never go back as the Luddites want?

Given the carping on the AS thread about conditions there, perhaps the American (Indian) golfers got it.  It was just the rest didn't.  Of course the Scots have always understood conditioning, technology or not.

And, who drives these directions anyway?  Is it really the American golfer?