R. Choi,
It isn't just .001%. It is anyone with a swing speed high enough to reap the benefit of the new technology relative to the old. There are lots of these guys and many of them aren't all that good. But they hit it far.
It is moronic when two -3 index players, one a long hitter and one a short hitter, do not fit well on the same golf course from the same tees.
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I am glad you are comfortable, but I am not.
I am not sure where you get the numbers to conclude that this change is about the same as past changes. Perhaps you could come up with some more facts to support the conclusion? Because my impression is that recent yardage jumps dwarf past yardage increases due to technological change, especially for those with higher swing speeds.
Additionally, this time it is not the same for a number of reasons, including the following.
1. After the introduction of the haskell ball just about every decent course in America was rebuilt, relocated, or at least significantly altered and lengthened. But that was in an era of plentiful and inexpensive land and when courses still had room to expand. This time there is nowhere reasonable to which to expand for most courses, so they are tricked up all sorts of ways in the hopes that they will remain relevant.
2. Luckily, losing some of those old courses may not have been too great a loss, as most of them were pretty remedial and without too much history or lore. And they were replaced by courses which remain some of our best to this day. So this time, we aren't losing some dark ages relic that probably needed improvement anyway, we are in danger of losing courses that have helped define golf for the past 80 to 100 years, and could continue to do so with reasonable regulation of the ball. These courses won't necessarily disappear, but the type of golf offered will bare less and less resemblance to what they once was.
3. The introduction of the haskell ball benefited all golfers, but it especially benefited the duffers. Reportedly, mishitting the prior ball was like hitting a brick, it went nowhere and would even crack clubshafts, so the duffer had been taking his lumps scorewise and equipment-wise. With the Haskell, the duffer probably improved relative to the scratch and the gap between the two may have narrowed slightly.
This time, the new ball disproportionately benefits the long hitter as opposed to the short hitter, Some golfers get dozens more yards out of the Pro V while many gained nothing. This has created a huge gap between long and short which dwarfs anything we've had before. The gap taxes the old architecture beyond the breaking point and it makes building new courses that actually work for everyone an extremely unlikely prospect.
In other words, it is killing the architecture.