[Jud_T]

Reading the Hickory Handicap thread lead to a thought...Was it a coincidence that the decline from the Golden Age of GCA coincided with the advent of steel shafted clubs?  With Hickories it wasn't a given that most if not all golfers could execute forced carries.  With improved technology even hackers can get the ball airborne, at least for short distances.  In the old days one couldn't make this assumption, so early GCA's were careful to allow the duffer a largely unobstructed path from tee to green, even if it wasn't the "line of charm".  Did technological change in golf clubs affect golf course design negatively beyond additional length? (As separate from the advent of modern construction equipment). A penny for your thoughts...

[jeffwarne]

Reading the Hickory Handicap thread lead to a thought...Was it a coincidence that the decline from the Golden Age of GCA coincided with the advent of steel shafted clubs?  With Hickories it wasn't a given that most if not all golfers could execute forced carries.  With improved technology even hackers can get the ball airborne, at least for short distances.  In the old days one couldn't make this assumption, so early GCA's were careful to allow the duffer an unobstructed path from tee to green, even if it wasn't the "line of charm".  Did technological change in golf clubs affect golf course design negatively beyond additional length? (As separate from the advent of modern construction equipment). A penny for your thoughts...

Actually, early GCA's built a lot of top shot and carry bunkers, many of which were filled in during the depression and war years, and later due to "fairness"

I would agree though that golf played on a smaller scale is/can more strategic, and strategic width becomes more useable on a smaller scale (i.e a 40 yard wide fairway is "wider" when a ball goes 10-20% shorter")

Modern weapons creat a different, in my opinion far more boring kind've strategy. ie. what club can I keep within the given corridor (still the same size and often even narrower)

[Josh Tarble]

I don't disagree with you, but I do think steel shafts and modern technology has made golden age architecture even better for 99% of golfers.  When I play a golden age course, I can't help but think at how incredibly hard it would have with hickories.  At the same time I think how incredibly fun the design is with the clubs I'm using. 

Sure, there are several modern courses that are clunkers, but I'm guessing there were a lot of golden age courses that were poorly designed as well.  For a while, I think designers were struggling to keep up with technological advances and how best to design around the equipment.  But, as you can see now, designers like C&C, Renaissance, Gil Hanse, even Pete Dye (to an extent), etc., etc., are figuring out how to make incredibly playable designs for modern equipment. 

[Niall C]

Jud

FWIW here's what I think. The difference between back then and now is that we now play an aerial game where the ball flies most of the way and comes to a stop on landing a lot easier, at least in comparison to the hickory days. Now whether this has been effected by the shift from hickory to steel or whether its the clubface or the ball, I'll leave for others to argue but the big difference this has made is that positional play has been become less important since generally speaking a high ball into a green gets the same reward no matter which angle you come in from. The bomb and guoge strategem is probably the extreme result of that.

When correct angles of approach become less important then strategy as the old guys saw it becomes an irrelevance and perhaps as a consequence courses became less interesting.

Niall

[Peter Pallotta]

Jud - a wild card in this seems to be the hard-to-measure change in the average golfer's expectations. In the golden age and the era of hickories, being a "Bogie Golfer" was a good thing, and I'd imagine that most members of the great old clubs would've been tickled pink to get around those stern tests in 90+ strokes -- happy with themselves, and, more importantly, happy with the golf course. Something happened after that; I'm not sure what.

Peter 

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