Mark Smolens:
Fair enough. We've been over that territory often around here. I'd proffer that you would get a lot of agreement from many on this board, as well as from many inside the USGA, believe it or not. However, before you give the USGA the death sentence for whatever it hasn't done (in your view) about the march of technology, you must answer, or try to answer, the question,
"What would golf equipment look and perform like if the USGA and R&A were not in the business of regulating golf equipment?"
I would suggest that the effect of technology as it has developed over the past few years would be nothing compared to what might have been.
And please do not discount the fact that in addition to better equipment the players are better physically, technically, mentally, and psychologocally, all of which have demonstrable impact on how they play the game.
And remember that the equpment companies are going to continue to find ways to improve their product, or at least convince us that they have done so.
And that the effect of technology is exponentially greater at the tour level than anywhere else.
My information is that the Publinx handicap index limit will be reduced to 4.4. This has been coming, and justifiably so, for a long time. Ten years ago there was no hadicap limit. The qualifying fields are getting too large. Securing courses and conducting the qualifiers is getting tougher. In many qualifiers a third of the field couldn't break 85. The alternative was to go from a 36 hole qualifier to an 18 hole qualifier. While neither reducing the index (size of the field) or reducing the qualifier is desireable, reducing the field was the lesser of two evils.
The Publinks still has a team competition, the Warren Harding Cup. Three man teams representing their qualifying sites play for the cup during the two days of stroke play, each team counting two scores each day.
I would have to second the comments about the USGA Museum and Archives. They are the simply the best resource available on any aspect of the history of the game, and they are about to get even better with the new addition. I challenge anyone to go stand in front of Bob Jones's medal case and not get chills as you come to realize for the first time the enormity of what he accomplished from 1922-30.
As Ben Hogan said, "If there weren't a USGA, somebody would have to start one." This comment was made when Hogan was awarded the Bob Jones Award, even for the remainder of his life he disputed the number of US Opens he won. We may not agree with everything the USGA does, but thank God it exosts, and the game is not run by those who have only a commercial interest in it.