Following on from Neil's excellent thread on increased driving distances, I thought that some might like to read an excerpt from a letter Willie Park wrote to Golf Illustrated in October 1910 following a professional tournament at Sunningdale the week before;
"Dear Sir,
The principal topic of conversation at Sunningdale last week was the standardisation of the golf ball. When one sees the first hole, measuring 500 yards, driven with a drive and an iron shot, and eleven years ago, in the "gutta" days, when I made the course, it took two full shots and a pitch to get to the green, it is surely time that something was done to prevent golf courses from being entirely spoilt."
One hundred years later not much has changed it would seem in terms of the burning issues of the day, although personally speaking I can't imagine I could reach any 500 yard hole with a drive and an iron, hard running links excepted, and I suspect that the vast majority of club golfers might be the same.
Niall