Mike W and Pat
I read your disagreement with interest and would chalk it up to the simple distinction between golf...and tournament golf. (Real tournament golf, that is, and not handicap / club events.)
As for golf and distance aids, I am all for any argument that gets golfers away from them.
I will repeat the argument I've made before: technology inserts a barrier between the individual and the experience. By "technology" I go to the etymological roots and mean any type of "useful knowledge."
So sprinkler heads and even 150 markers count as technology. When we use them -- and, sure, I do sometimes, especially when I am playing with anxiety or fear -- when we use them we degrade our vision.
We don't see as much, and what we manage to see we don't comprehend as fully.
We don't see the green in its fullness as a "green"; the green, at least in part, is reduced to a target.
Which is a shame on many levels, slowER play perhaps being the least, at least to me. What's really lost is your experience.
And I will add: not only that, you miss the opportunity to witness what an amazing machine your body is. Yes, eyeballing distances is a skill and, yes, it takes time and experience to develop. But as we all know, each of us possesses the world's most powerful computer: it's right between our ears. Too bad so few of us, me included sometimes / oftentimes, lack the confidence or courage to trust in it.
Which is to say, you can get really good at it. If a chop like me can, so can you!
End of rant. :-)