USGA: Keeping Their Eye On Something, Vol. 1

For those of you who didn't get the USGA's October newsletter (and based on their dwindling membership total, that's most), this site will pass along snippets from the "Special Issue: Equipment," where as one astute Golf Club Atlas observer noted, the USGA lays how there is nothing wrong with recent changes in the game, and they're doing everything they can to stop it from happening again.

Consider the "Merion and Woodhall" sidebar, where writer Gary Galyean says that if it weren't for advances in ball performance, we would not have had those two great courses to play (and lengthen and narrow). He writes:

Ironically, without the advance of increased ball performance, we would never have seen the resulting masterpieces that include Merion's East Course (Ardmore, PA) and the perfected Woodhall Spa (Lincolnshire, England).

Then he writes, and I do not make this up:

Other than perhaps drinking, tinking to improve equipment may be golf's oldest tradition.

Nothing like some first year frat house humor to class-up the newsletter.

Anyway, the point of the sidebar and the entire newsletter is to say, it's all good, roll with it baby, this is what golf has always been about: consumption. Oh, and we are now taking a proactive approach because, well things have changed and this can't go on like this.

Somehow I don't see this appearing in the October, 2095 newsletter:

Ironically, without the advance of increased ball performance, we would never have seen the resulting masterpieces that include the 8,600 yard Jade Mountain Snow Golf Club (People's Republic of China) and 8,100 yard Antler Creek(Las Vegas, Nevada).

Other than perhaps drinking, buying a new driver twice a year may be golf's oldest tradition. A historical inspection of square grooved irons, Scotty Cameron putters or Precept balls reveals that the conniving mind of man has always been at work to find a more effective way of getting extra dollars out of the golfer.