This to me is the interesting part of Jim Thompson's intial post;
"The conclusion being that the shallow green wasn’t, and I cringe as I type the word, “fair”. As I read it the first time it made sense, players of lesser skill levels struggle with SPINNING the ball and therefore old shallow greens are extremely difficult to play. However, when I read it a second time through I read, players of lesser skill levels struggle with spinning the BALL.
So… Were the old shallow greens as difficult to play when they were constructed? When they were played with the balls of their time?"
Jim Thompson seems to be asking about the playable characteristics of the old balls vs the new balls and their capablilty of "spinning" off the clubs of various levels of players. This is a really excellent question, the answer to which has ALWAYS been little known and understood, in my opinion!
I'm not a physicist or scientist but I think it's generally accepted that the higher a ball's spin rate the greater a ball's ability to check and hold on a green and the old balata type balls very likely had a higher spin rate, maybe much higher than most any ball on the market today!! This is something I believe few golfers and practically no higher handicappers understand particularly well or have ever understood.
In a short sentence, most unsophisticated goflers have no idea at all about the spectrum of playing characteristics of golf balls or I should probably more accurately say the allowable spectrum of playing characteristics (under the USGA/R&A golf ball rules and regs) as they relate to something like spin and spin rate and what it does when a ball hits a green.
It's always amused me when an unsophisticated golfer looks in awe at a tour pro spin a ball onto a green, check it and suck it back 5-10-20 or more steps) and wonders why he can't do that. Well, first of all, it does take swing speed to mazimize that type of spin, check and suck back but that's not all it takes! It also take a particular type of golf ball with a high spin rate--something very few higher handicapper ever play.
And these unsophisticated golfers looking at what those pros do have no idea either that Tiger Woods or any other pro or high class player could not possibly do that with the type of golf ball those unsophisticated golfers use--call it a pinnacle or a rock as that's a good example of a generic low spinning characteristic golf ball that almost all high handicappers use.
So, if these unsophisticated golfers want to even attempt to spin, check and suck back their ball on a shallow green, for instance, the first thing they must do is use a ball with the same spin characteristics as the pro uses, or perhaps a ball with even higher spin characteristics but most certainly not a ball with lower spin characeristics.
Obviously, they will never be able to spin, check and suck it back so well as the pro because they generally don't have his swing speed (which is necessary to a large degree) but at least these unsophisticated players will be able to spin, check and suck back their balls better than they do now with a low spin characteristic ball such as a pinnacle.
But the larger point and one that might answer Jim Thompson's concerns about shallow greens in design's future even better is there may be a huge spectrum of presently untapped spin potential that the manufacturers are not today employing!
This kind of thing gets into a matter of diminishing returns after a while. In other words, I don't believe there's anything within the USGA/R&A rules and regs for golf balls that limits the manufacturers in how much spin they can design into the ball. The thing the USGA/R&A rules and regs are primarily concerned with regarding golf balls is what their distance potential is, not necessarily just their spin rate--although they certainly are linked in physics!
I see no reason why the manufacturers could not offer the weaker, shorter player a golf ball with an extremely high spin rate so they could better stop their ball on a green. Obviously, a pro wouldn't use a ball like that because with his higher swing speed he'd probably spin it all over the place and lack control!
Since I am no physicist or scientist I imagine that a really high spinning ball would have a lot to do with distance and trajectory characteristics too (probably negatively to the distance and trajectory of the weaker player) but we've just seen these manufacturers come up with some interesting wrinkles in what they generally refer to as "optimizaiton". Optimization to me is getting to be sort of a weird science but they're apparantly now able to manufacture a club/ball symbiosis that allows a low spin rate off the driver and a much higher spin rate off the wedge!!
If they can do that for the good player I would imagine they can probably also figure out how to make a ball that will enhance distance/trajectory and also spin rate for the weaker player at the other end of the skill spectrum. And if they could do that it would be a potential answer to how a weak, short player could stop his ball on a shallow green better.
But of course the first thing he'll have to do is understand the playing characteristic differences in golf balls better, at least potentially. I'd think there just might be an enormous untapped market here for manufacturers in both advertizing and production!!
In other words, the spin rate spectrum seems to be almost unlimited within the USGA/R&A golf ball rules and regs so the manufacturers should now figure out how to both R&D it and use it in production and play for the weaker, high handicap player!
To answer one of Jim Thompson's intial questions--if the higher handicapper today used a ball with as high a spin rate as the old balata ball (which was once the only ball in existence before the two piece "rock's" inception in the 1960s) they'd definitely be able to spin, check and hold the ball on shallow greens better!
There's a good reason, matter of fact about the only reason, the higher handicapper and weaker and less skilled player gave up that old soft higher spinning balata ball in favor of the new "rock" when it entered golf. That reason is because when you missed a shot with the old balata type it cut and was done and the new rock didn't cut!! So they gave it up for that reason alone and apparently either never knew or completely forgot what the differences in playing characteristics were all about.
One would think they may have at least wondered why all higher handicappers played the rock while virtually not a single pro or good player ever did!! I guess golfers mostly aren't very inquisitive!