A couple of things that are basically unscientific, personal observations.
As an assistant super. at a southern CA private club.
1982 Mowing fairways with a Jacobsen 7 gang F-10 Big ass machine. Fairways watered with inefficient system, inconsistent
1985 Irrigation upgraded, now mowing with Jake HF-5 5 gang intermediate size mower with hydraulic reels. Very consistent fairways.
1987 Started mowing with Jake greensmowers
Striping and mowing below 1/2 inch. Fairways were perfect, course played
about 8-10 yards shorter due to roll mostly for me
1990 PGA Tour All of 5'5", but the locker room was full of guys my size. Pavin, Funk, Sluman, Lanny. I was shocked at how much
smaller Norman was than I thought, and NOBODY seemed to use the same measuring device that I used
It was worse than
the internet, everybody listed themselves a couple inches taller (larger
) than they were!
1992 Started using a Big Bertha Driver, it was stupid straight compared to me Cleveland TC 15
1996 Titanium, but loft too low. Guys were just starting to learn to hit it higher with less spin and trust it
2000 Off for 3 years, post surgery, playing Buy.com, and I felt like Papa Smurf in the locker room, and I was now short
Kids were bigger, and everybody was playing solid core balls and hitting it unbelievably high. It was a whole new game
So? Well, you are all correct!. The ball changed, players learned to optimize launch and spin, workouts became standard, and pretty intense for about everybody. (in a 4 month window with a trainer, I increased my yardage by 1 full club, and 12 yards with driver, same equipment!). Shafts were more consistent, lofts went up, spin came down, grooves got nasty, and more athletes chose golf over other big sports. Maintenance quality allows for more roll consistency.
Can we at least recognize that not one thing has changed this? There are way more good athletes playing golf, and way better engineers doing R&D. Funny thing is, avg golfers are still bad, and the game is still not growing. There are very well meaning people I disagree with, but c'mon, it's not as black and white as some of the arguments