"Tom, since most of the people who've answered have just said what they want done and not who will do it, I guess they are going to take the task on themselves.
Since many of those who complain the most only seem to care about how far the pros are hitting it I would guess they would leave it up to the PGA Tour to do the job. Doing that would certainly give me a warm feeling that the right thing would be done."
JohnV:
Precisely. And thanks, you seem to be the only one who even attempted to answer the questions. The rest seem to be stuck on how to cap distance or how to come up with a "competition" ball.
Those are not the questions on this thread. The questions are what if, for whatever reasons, the USGA was no longer in I&B testing and rules and regulations? Who would do it? Who would take the place of what they've been doing in this area for so long?
Would it be the PGA TOUR? Would it be the manufacturers? Maybe ANGC would like to get into doing it themselves? Or maybe GOLFCLUBATLAS.com could take up contributions and we could go buy the USGA's multi-million dollar tech and test center and do it ourselves.
I asked these questions on this thread because I suspected that most of those who rail and opine on this subject apparently seem to think the USGA, their Tech Center and their I&B testing and spec rules and regulations writing, monitoring and administering will always be there.
Can we be sure of that? And if so why? If, for whatever reasons, the USGA lost their relevancy in this area or just got out of it, WHAT IS THE ALTERNATIVE? If one is going to continue to criticize most everything they've done and do, perhaps it's time to start thinking about that.
I wonder why it happened to be only you, JohnV, who not only attempted to answer the questions but you seem to be the only one who even recognized the significance of the questions. Perhaps it's because you are one of the few on here who actually work in amateur golf administration and understand what could happen here.