Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group => Topic started by: Adam Clayman on July 17, 2010, 02:50:29 PM
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Rather than picking an era, watching the players drive the 18th green at St. Andrews Old Course, leads me to believe that this historic place in golf deserves to be the gauge.
Without the aid of significant wind, driving this green seems to exemplify the excesses of modernity. Surely, it must ruin pace, even for everyday play, as the trickle down affect from the pro game is mimicked by many recreational golfers.
If you agree that the ball needs to be reigned in, I submit there's no better homage than using the home hole, at the home of golf, as the best gauge those young, pioneering USGA/R&A committeemen should use in trying to decide how far the ball should go when hit at 150 mph.
I won't get into any more specifics, now, but would enjoy hearing (OK, Reading) thoughts on this and other possible gauges and justifications.
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Surely you must remember Jack Nicklaus hitting his tee shots over the green in the 1970 Open Championship? That was 40 years ago; I wish I could find a scorecard from that championship. But my gosh, this hole is some 350+ yards long. Thats a mighty high maximum standard; really a pointless max standard given that only a select few can get it out there that far baring really firm ground conditions or wind. I mean, 150 mph ball speed roughly amounts to 125 mph head speed which, given calm conditions at sea level, works out to a ~310 yard drive. You have to consider that golf balls are rolling 50+ yards to get on that green.
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As I have suggested in the past, the gauge for ball roll backs would be one that reads the spin. The game was played differently when the ball spun more. To get rid of bomb and gouge you need to return to the spin specs of the older balls.
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Yes Garland, but the argument then raised is which ball. Which era? My suggestion was trying think around that argument by not fixating on era, but by fixing ball specs, so that only the most perfect of strikes could yield driving the home hole green, or the 9th. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a story of someone who did it before the Haskel. Wind and ground considerations being perfect. Think Ice. ;)
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As I have suggested in the past, the gauge for ball roll backs would be one that reads the spin. The game was played differently when the ball spun more. To get rid of bomb and gouge you need to return to the spin specs of the older balls.
Prove this statement. Show me statistics. Prove it. Also, go and look back. I am looking at an article online that states the distance gain going from a Gutta-percha ball to a Haskell ball was about 20 yards. To be sure, the general construction of the Haskell improved over the years, but the 2000 Titleist Professional was made in much the same way as the Haskell in 1900. Do the ProV1's go 20 yards farther on average than the Professionals? Prove to me they do.
Distance gains have come from much more than the golf ball. Lighter clubs allow for more head speed. Longer clubs allow for more head speed. Stronger lofts allow for even more distance when coupled with that additional head speed. Different club materials allow for higher ball speed off the face. You just don't get it.
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John:
What I get is that when Jack Nicklaus drove the 18th green in the playoff in 1970, it was a one-off, an indication of how strong he was.
And that was with the 1.62-in ball that went +/- 30 yards farther than the American ball of that day and age!
This, most of the field seemed to be able to drive it up on the green. I know it's not all the ball. It's a number of things. The question is, will anyone ever decide that some of those things ought to be fixed. If they do, the ball is the easiest to change.
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John Moore,
I think you might be underestimating how much longer top players hit the ball as compared to a dozen years ago (give or take a few.) You request proof of the increase and its cause, and that is a difficult matter, but nonetheless there have been plenty of discussions addressing the changes as well as all sorts of comparisons to the past. I am not going to recite them all here because some are long and fairly complicated, but a few creative searches should pull them up. I am curious, what sort of proof are you looking for? What if anything would convince you that the new ball has lead to an large jump in driving distances for the big hitters? What if anything would convince you that this is a major problem for gca? As for your mention of Nicklaus' 1970 drive, I agree with Tom. It was an anomoly. That said, I wonder if perhaps you underestimate how much of of anomoly such drives of over 350 yards were. Not long ago, drives over 350 yards were either wild fantasies or anomolies caused by freak conditions. Now they have become commonplace for top players.
On the PGA Tour in 1992, only one single drive was hit farther than 350 yards. Mark Calcavecchia. 372 yards.
On the PGA Tour in 2009 I cannot tell you how many times 350 yards was surpassed, because the Longest Drives list only includes drives of 356 yards and over. There were 985 drives of 356 yards or more.
But the above stats might not even do the issue justice. There are likely hundreds more just below 356, and thousands more close to it. Likely there were just too many to carry the list down much further. Every few yards adds a bunch of long drives. Last year 237 drives measured 357-359 yards.
Imagine how many thousands more measured over that once mythical 300 yard mark? It would be freakish indeed if there were almost 1000 drives over 350 yards, but only a few between 300 and 350.
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David, In 1992, I believe they only got distances on two holes, but with Shotlink they now get distances for every hole. I'm not disputing you that the ball goes further and that there are more drives over 350, just mentioning that those were apples and these are oranges.
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My suggestion would be to go way back to the time after the Haskell took over from the Gutty when the Second Golden Age was about to start. It would honour all those great courses.
It seems mad that we build great courses and a few years later they have to be modified leaving little of the original designers intent. It would be a good starting point leaving open the door for further improvements in play.
Melvyn
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Modifying the entire game because of 0.001% group of players is absolutely moronic.
Have we not learned anything from the groove change? All that brouhaha and lawsuits and the scramble statistics and driving statistics have not changed one iota, and you guys want to go through another one?
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As I have suggested in the past, the gauge for ball roll backs would be one that reads the spin. The game was played differently when the ball spun more. To get rid of bomb and gouge you need to return to the spin specs of the older balls.
Prove this statement. Show me statistics. Prove it. Also, go and look back. I am looking at an article online that states the distance gain going from a Gutta-percha ball to a Haskell ball was about 20 yards. To be sure, the general construction of the Haskell improved over the years, but the 2000 Titleist Professional was made in much the same way as the Haskell in 1900. Do the ProV1's go 20 yards farther on average than the Professionals? Prove to me they do.
Distance gains have come from much more than the golf ball. Lighter clubs allow for more head speed. Longer clubs allow for more head speed. Stronger lofts allow for even more distance when coupled with that additional head speed. Different club materials allow for higher ball speed off the face. You just don't get it.
My statement on distance comes from a TEP post that said the USGA told him that the change in spin makes the ProV go around 25 yards further than the balata covered balls that the tour pros used to use. It is impossible to prove empirically, because no one makes a comparable ball to the old ones, and the old wound balls had to be relatively new to maintain peak performance. I would imaging that the USGA has the mathematical models that would show that result. That coincides with my experience as a young man playing TopFlites and Titleists. It also coincides with what several people have testified to on this site saying that there used to be competitors in high level tournaments that used TopFlites and far out drove the field, but never had much success due to the limited control they had around the greens.
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John,
Good point. I took another look and they are definitely using all drives for the more recent. Unfortunately the PGA Tour stats are all messed up right now for less recent years, so I cannot look closely at 1992 to see what they were using. But I take your word for it that they were very likely only using the two holes they chose to measure driving distance.
But while not perfect the numbers are hardly apples and oranges. It would be nearly statistically impossible for there to have been only one drive of over 350 yards on the measured holes, and hundreds of drives over 350 yards on the unmeasured holes. This is especially the tour chooses to measure on holes where more of the field will likely hit driver. Now we are dealing with thousands of drives over 350 yards.
On that topic, I think I drastically underestimated the number of huge drives these guys hit. I guessed that thousands of drives were hit at least 300 yards. I should of have guessed in the tens of thousands. On the PGA tour last year (2009) there were tens of thousands of drives hit 300 yards or more.
Last year, 165 PGA Tour players hit at least one hundred (100) drives of 300 yards or more. Below is a sampling of how many of these drives were hit by some recognizable players.
Number of Drives Hit 300 Yards or More
298 such drives for Mickelson
239 such drives for Cabrerra
380 such drives for Kim
358 such drives for Mahan
248 such drives for Romero
275 such drives for O'Hair
165 such drives for Couples
254 such drives for Ogilvy
194 such drives for Garcia
231 such drives for Singh
209 such drives for Woods
315 such drives for Howell III
236 such drives for Cink
Again, these were chosen for name recognition. The big hitters hit a lot more. For example, Dustin Johnson hit 477 drives of 300 yards or more, and Charlie Hoffman hit 478 such drives.
(All stats from PGA tour website)
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As I have suggested in the past, the gauge for ball roll backs would be one that reads the spin. The game was played differently when the ball spun more. To get rid of bomb and gouge you need to return to the spin specs of the older balls.
Prove this statement. Show me statistics. Prove it. Also, go and look back. I am looking at an article online that states the distance gain going from a Gutta-percha ball to a Haskell ball was about 20 yards. To be sure, the general construction of the Haskell improved over the years, but the 2000 Titleist Professional was made in much the same way as the Haskell in 1900. Do the ProV1's go 20 yards farther on average than the Professionals? Prove to me they do.
Distance gains have come from much more than the golf ball. Lighter clubs allow for more head speed. Longer clubs allow for more head speed. Stronger lofts allow for even more distance when coupled with that additional head speed. Different club materials allow for higher ball speed off the face. You just don't get it.
My statement on distance comes from a TEP post that said the USGA told him that the change in spin makes the ProV go around 25 yards further than the balata covered balls that the tour pros used to use. It is impossible to prove empirically, because no one makes a comparable ball to the old ones, and the old wound balls had to be relatively new to maintain peak performance. I would imaging that the USGA has the mathematical models that would show that result. That coincides with my experience as a young man playing TopFlites and Titleists. It also coincides with what several people have testified to on this site saying that there used to be competitors in high level tournaments that used TopFlites and far out drove the field, but never had much success due to the limited control they had around the greens.
I'll take Tom's word that the USGA said 25 yards more than Balata; that would probably amount to right around 20 yards longer than a Professional, as they were moderately longer but vastly more durable. However, either way, you prove what I was trying to talk about. This is not the first time golf balls has gotten 20+ yards longer nearly over night. The game survived fine in 1900, it will survive just fine in 2010. I feel quite sure that the same arguments being being made today were made 110 years ago. The game will do just fine without a change in the ball.
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My suggestion would be to go way back to the time after the Haskell took over from the Gutty when the Second Golden Age was about to start. It would honour all those great courses.
It seems mad that we build great courses and a few years later they have to be modified leaving little of the original designers intent. It would be a good starting point leaving open the door for further improvements in play.
Melvyn
Melvyn,
Fair enough. But what do you do with all the courses built since then? Wouldn't they be too long? ;)
(Seriously, though - I'm sure this very question is on the minds of the USGA/R&A)
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...This is not the first time golf balls has gotten 20+ yards longer nearly over night. The game survived fine in 1900, it will survive just fine in 2010. I feel quite sure that the same arguments being being made today were made 110 years ago. The game will do just fine without a change in the ball.
If the USGA were to regulate the ball as I specified, it would not be the first time the USGA regulated the ball to control distance. They did so with the initial velocity test, and the game did just fine. They did so with the overall distance standard, and the game did just fine.
However, it seems arguable that the game is doing just fine currently with the distance game and without a new regulation. However, I doubt whether anyone can offer conclusive prove that the trend of the last several years has anything to do with ball distance.
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R. Choi,
It isn't just .001%. It is anyone with a swing speed high enough to reap the benefit of the new technology relative to the old. There are lots of these guys and many of them aren't all that good. But they hit it far.
It is moronic when two -3 index players, one a long hitter and one a short hitter, do not fit well on the same golf course from the same tees.
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I am glad you are comfortable, but I am not.
I am not sure where you get the numbers to conclude that this change is about the same as past changes. Perhaps you could come up with some more facts to support the conclusion? Because my impression is that recent yardage jumps dwarf past yardage increases due to technological change, especially for those with higher swing speeds.
Additionally, this time it is not the same for a number of reasons, including the following.
1. After the introduction of the haskell ball just about every decent course in America was rebuilt, relocated, or at least significantly altered and lengthened. But that was in an era of plentiful and inexpensive land and when courses still had room to expand. This time there is nowhere reasonable to which to expand for most courses, so they are tricked up all sorts of ways in the hopes that they will remain relevant.
2. Luckily, losing some of those old courses may not have been too great a loss, as most of them were pretty remedial and without too much history or lore. And they were replaced by courses which remain some of our best to this day. So this time, we aren't losing some dark ages relic that probably needed improvement anyway, we are in danger of losing courses that have helped define golf for the past 80 to 100 years, and could continue to do so with reasonable regulation of the ball. These courses won't necessarily disappear, but the type of golf offered will bare less and less resemblance to what they once was.
3. The introduction of the haskell ball benefited all golfers, but it especially benefited the duffers. Reportedly, mishitting the prior ball was like hitting a brick, it went nowhere and would even crack clubshafts, so the duffer had been taking his lumps scorewise and equipment-wise. With the Haskell, the duffer probably improved relative to the scratch and the gap between the two may have narrowed slightly.
This time, the new ball disproportionately benefits the long hitter as opposed to the short hitter, Some golfers get dozens more yards out of the Pro V while many gained nothing. This has created a huge gap between long and short which dwarfs anything we've had before. The gap taxes the old architecture beyond the breaking point and it makes building new courses that actually work for everyone an extremely unlikely prospect.
In other words, it is killing the architecture.
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It is moronic when two -3 index players, one a long hitter and one a short hitter, do not fit well on the same golf course from the same tees.
David,
Could you elaborate on this question please? What specific example are you referencing?
Thanks.
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I know that someone a lot smarter than I has brought this up before, and rejected it for some good reason - but.
Why shouldn't golf be like baseball? Amateurs swing metal, and pros swing wood?
If the pros had to play persimmon heads, perhaps even of smaller size than the current massive ones......how much would it affect driving distance and accuracy, even if the ball remained unchanged?
You and I could keep playing our "metal woods" without guilt.
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Kirk,
I think safety is the primary issue in baseball, isn't it?
With the exception of Garland Bayley on here, I haven't seen that used as a justification for any sort of rollback.
In my opinion, why not just build golf courses for the people that play them?
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I wouldn't contend that the rationale for using wood in golf is anything like the rationale in baseball. I'm just wondering what effect having professional golfers only use wooden woods would have on their distance and accuracy. I really wouldn't care at ALL what the pros do if it didn't cause a bunch of folks to get their panties in a wad and go about screwing with existing golf courses just so they won't get overpowered by professional play. I totally agree with your statement "why not just build golf courses for the people that play them?"
Just a notion.
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This time, the new ball disproportionately benefits the long hitter as opposed to the short hitter, Some golfers get dozens more yards out of the Pro V while many gained nothing. This has created a huge gap between long and short which dwarfs anything we've had before. The gap taxes the old architecture beyond the breaking point and it makes building new courses that actually work for everyone an extremely unlikely prospect.
In other words, it is killing the architecture.
I disagree with that. Especially given what Bridgestone has done in the past few years. Their B330 series has balls that are hard cored for high swing speed players and others that have softer cores for better players who don't swing as fast. Add to that their E series which has balls for the even slower swing speed players to gain distance with less spin. Now, it may be killing older architecture, I can't totally disagree with that; but the greats like Shinnecock, Pine Valley, etc., (and 95% of all courses really) I figure they'll remain relevant to all but the top .001% as you say and everything will be just fine.
Garland-In all your wisdom, tell me how to regulate spin. Give me a comprehensive plan for how to implement this spin regulation of yours.
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...for the even slower swing speed players to gain distance with less spin...
??? ??? ??? ???
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Shaq's reporting a one day lab experiment with a ball the mannies have supplied.
Could be a start that they have recognized there's a problem?
Nice discussion fellows, thanx.
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Shaq's reporting a one day lab experiment with a ball the mannies have supplied.
....
??? ??? ??? ???
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Kirk,
I think safety is the primary issue in baseball, isn't it?
No, it is purely economic. Wooden bats break often and replacing them gets expensive. Aluminum bats pretty much last forever. All amateur baseball switched away from wooden bats because it is cheaper. No safety issue involved.
I kinda like the idea of forcing pros to hit wooden clubs and blades only.
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Richard,
You say that as though it were fact...the local little league just switched to wood because they wanted to play what the pros play. I don't think many little leaguers are shattering bats, and the college teams would get them free as well...do you have evidence that it's purely a financial decision at some level?
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Richard,
You say that as though it were fact...the local little league just switched to wood because they wanted to play what the pros play. I don't think many little leaguers are shattering bats, and the college teams would get them free as well...do you have evidence that it's purely a financial decision at some level?
Don't know about you, but when I was young little league players broke bats very often.
The movement I have heard about in little league is to go back to wooden bats for safety. The COR of the aluminum bats is higher, and the ball goes back at the pitcher faster.
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Richard,
You say that as though it were fact...the local little league just switched to wood because they wanted to play what the pros play. I don't think many little leaguers are shattering bats, and the college teams would get them free as well...do you have evidence that it's purely a financial decision at some level?
Jim, I have worked with a lot of baseball professionals in the past and have done a lot of research into baseball. It is a pretty common knowledge.
But here are some quotes from a recent article...
"I just don't see the aluminum bat hindering our game in any way," Mississippi State's John Cohen said. "In an ideal world, wood would be cheap, very cost efficient and it would be totally equitable. That can never happen."
"Proponents of metal argue that all 301 Division I programs play with the same thing and there's no risk of having top programs playing with better wooden bats, potentially skewing the results. They also like the scoring boost and say a $300 aluminum bat can last an entire 56-game season, while $100 wooden bats can break at any time. "
"Aluminum bats were seen as a cost-saving alternative to wood when they were introduced at the college level in 1974"
And, Garland is correct. Wood bats are safer because balls don't come off them as hot as they do with aluminum bats.
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Seems like the same fix would work well for Little League, college BB or golf. 'Soften' the ball and you can use any steel you want.
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The number of drives hit over 350, or 356 yards is not necessarily a reliable guage. For example, at Kapalua's 18th just about every player hits it thagt far approx. 440 rounds, with many edging up to 400 nyards, not because of the ball or club but because of the hole's design and the course condition and the favorable trade winds.
Again I must caution about picking only on the ball. Equipment and training also count for something, as does the fact that players are just bigger than they used to be.
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Again I must caution about picking only on the ball. Equipment and training also count for something, as does the fact that players are just bigger than they used to be.
And perhaps conditioning? Are fairways a little tighter/smoother, such that you might get 1-2 yards more per drive? Not sure it has any effect, and it certainly wouldn't be a large effect by itself, but when added to club and ball technology (let's not forget launch monitors), as well as physical training, you get a big delta.
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Shaq's reporting a one day lab experiment with a ball the mannies have supplied.
....
??? ??? ??? ???
Garland, I really do not know what you are trying to say with your only emoticon posts, but, if you meant WTF, here's the what...
Asked about an unofficial upcoming dialed-back ball day, Tour deputy director Dan Halldorson threw up his hand like a stop sign last week during the Players Cup at Pine Ridge. He said he couldn't speak about it.
What we do know is that the Tour, after one of its events next month, is going to have a couple dozen of its players come back on a Monday for some research.
They'll play in what could be termed a one-day tournament. It might be better termed a lab experiment, and they'll all play with the same kind of golf ball -- one of these less-zippy models.
Word is these "prototype" balls will be anywhere from 10 to 20 per cent shorter, with the 20 per cent figure applying only to the hardest-hit and longest shots from the driver.
The group of pros will include Wininpeg's Adam Speirs. They will have just played a 72-hole tournament and will have assembled a good diary of information about distances and clubs hit.
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I disagree with that. Especially given what Bridgestone has done in the past few years. Their B330 series has balls that are hard cored for high swing speed players and others that have softer cores for better players who don't swing as fast. Add to that their E series which has balls for the even slower swing speed players to gain distance with less spin.
Johnj,
As you said above, prove it. Do you have any proof that the Bridgestones or any other swing-speed tailored ball flies further for the slow swinger than the state of the art balls (Balata's, professionals, etc.) before the distance boom? While it makes for a good advertisement I don't believe it. I have seen or experienced nothing to convince me otherwise.
Granted, these balls may work better for the slow swinger than the Pro Vx type balls. But better than what was used before? I am very doubtful. So far as I can see, the fast swinging golfer has reaped a huge distance dividend and these swing speed specific balls do little or nothing to change this. Maybe they will in the future, but I am not sure they can provide a similar distance bump for the short hitter without violating the USGA rules for ball distance at the faster end.
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It is moronic when two -3 index players, one a long hitter and one a short hitter, do not fit well on the same golf course from the same tees.
David,
Could you elaborate on this question please? What specific example are you referencing?
Thanks.
A few ideas behind that statement (which was in response to someone's claim it was moronic to change things for 0.001%.)
1. It is inaccurate to characterize the out of control distance as only mattering at the very top end (the supposed 0.001%.) Anyone with a reasonably fast swing speed has reaped some sort of benefit relative to the slower swingers. And there are many marginal golfers with fast swing speeds. They exist all through the single digit index players and even higher.
2. The flip-side is some excellent golfers with slow swing speeds have become much shorter off the tee relative to the long hitters of similar general ability. (And not-so good-golfers got shorter relative to other not-so-good golfers.)
3. This imbalances the architecture in ways that go well beyond just total distance of courses. It is very difficult build or even set-up a course so it works well for slow and fast swinging players of similar abilities. If features are in play for one, they are likely entirely irrelevant to the other. Any sort of forced carry long enough to be remotely interesting to the long hitter will be unplayable to the short hitter. Courses long enough to challenge the long hitter would be death marches for the short hitter. If they fit the short hitter, they are wedge after wedge for the longer players. Etc.
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I'd been away for a few days, but I pretty much agree with the last post of David Moriarty, particularly the second part where he lists 1, 2 and 3 to apparently Jim Sullivan.
I don't think there is much question that what I would call the "distance differential" between the highest swing speed players and the rest really did widen significantly beginning between 15-20 years ago. I pretty much know all this from personal experience back before the so-called distance increase or the widening of the distance differential between high swing speed players and lower swing speed players, even lower swing speed scratch players, and what I have seen since particularly in officiating Class A tournaments.
Back in the 1980s the longest drivers around like Jay Sigel (who could hit his driver a tad farther than the likes of Norman and Ballesteros) or a John Webster from my club could hit their tee shots 40-50 yards farther than I could. The actual numbers were around 230 to about 270 to 280. Today, even being older and weaker I can still hit it about the same distance I did then but now golfers with the swing speeds those two mentioned used to have can hit a drive up to 100 yards farther than I can. That is a significant real world difference I would call a significant widening of the "distance differential."
Does this have an impact if you have to put a spectrum of scratch players on the same course and setup? Of course it does. And doubling that "distance differential" is very significant that way too.
Why did it happen? THAT, in my mind, at least, is a story that is very provable, even if it is a pretty complex story that deals with some pretty interesting and unexpected historical ramifications. To do something about it at this point----eg to dial back that distance differential to about what it used to be may not be all that hard. Some may call it trying to put the Genie back in the bottle. I don't think so if one begins at the beginning and carefully analyzes how the whole thing played out over the last 40-50 years with particularly the development of the golf ball and who used what at any particular point in time.