jeff's point : I see your point and hope you're wrong.
Should complete tools such as the target consumer you describe playing with drive the bus on decision making?
My point is it's OK if tools like that buy less stuff-I'm more worried about core golfers quitting or playing less as opposed to knuckleheads like that.
The point, in fact, is that golfers have been fleeing the game for several years now, not because the new clubs hit the new balls farther> Those who are sticking with the game are doing it for precisely those gains in distance. The economic consequences of the development of these new technologies -- far more expensive equipment, higher real estate costs for land purchases to lengthen courses, higher maintenance costs for the longer and harder courses, increased dues for members of such clubs with lengthened courses, etc. -- have far more to do with the ordinary golfer's flight. All of this is happening in an environment in which people have been losing buying power for years, potentially high earners among the young have been struggling with college debt, the income inequality has soured many people's taste for a game perceived as a rich man's sport, people having to work too jobs and raise families, leaving them little time or money for expensive, time-intensive recreation.
Bigger and longer are better for very few in the world of golf these days.