As I’ve said before, forget about the clubs, just re-calibrate the damn ball!
Atb
+1
Just add more spin to the damn ball
For some reason, people can't seem to understand that there's a 90-year-old solution. Lighten the damned ball.
No, there's an essay on this site that has been used to counter the idea,
https://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/john-vander-borght-the-balloon-ball/, but it COMPLETELY overlooks the advances in ball construction in the last 90 years.
When the USGA both increased the minimum diameter and dropped the maximum weight of the ball, everyone was playing balata balls, which had only replaced gutties in the early years of the century. As anyone who played them balata balls were VERY hard to hit straight, and were even harder to control in the wind. And the harder you hit them them the more difficult it became.
Which explains why Jack could hit a 341-yard drive to win the PGA Long Drive competition in 1963, but never hit it like that in regular play. It wasn't worth the risk to go at it that hard with a 42 7/8" persimmon driver when it meant the ball might exit the property.
With today's ball construction and big drivers a lighter ball would act more like balata for high ball speed players like the pros. It would curve more, maybe upshoot a bit in a headwind for those same players.
But the REAL beauty is that a SLIGHTLY lighter ball wouldn't hurt short hitters much, if at all. In fact some folks think that seniors and women can benefit from ball that has a lower cross sectional density. (See the TopFlite Magna and Callaway Supersoft Max that get this by increasing diameter...)
The gain in carry from a lighter ball might be significant for very low ball speed players. Short hitters would also benefit from the fact that it would sit up a tiny bit better on the fairway.
Best of all there's a quirk of ballistics that reducing cross sectional density disproportionately affects projectiles launched at higher velocities.
In other words, when you hit it harder, you don't anything like a linear increase in distance.
As far as the actual change in weight, it would be reasonably simple for the USGA to experiment with weights between the current 1.62 oz. limit and the 1.55 oz. standard of 1931.
The most common negative, other than the old balloon ball experiment, which I think simply doesn't apply to modern multi-layer balls, is that it would make short game shots easier, especially out of the rough.
Oh, the horror!!