Young Mike...very insightful post. Taking my thoroughfare and extending it to the race track is connective tissue! Who doesn't respect virile young guys over old dead guys, anyway?
At the same (anonymous) club where Ian Andrew and team did great bunker work on a Travis course, there is a member of the most genial sort of nature. Unfortunately, he's a basher (and a low handicapper) as opposed to a putter (and a low handicapper.) He is connected with the younger players and is a fan of adding deeper tees on every hole. I guess it doesn't really matter, as long as the middle and forward tees aren't altered (a la Augusta), but one does hope that addition of tees is all that the fellow puts his mind to, since length is his systematic, particular challenge when it comes to golf.
And that might be the rub, in the end. Is it that we denizens of this cave see most or all the challenges of the golf course, while those who don't lurk here, see only the length, or the accuracy, or the hazard, or the putting issue, thus restricting their focus to that particular element?