"Playing it for free, he won twice."

Okay, next point from Nick Seitz's excellent Golf World story on shotmaking. The ball. The one that's harder to move.

"In some ways the old ball was better," says Johnny Miller. "It spun more, so you could get to just about any flag. The irons today are weighted at the bottom to get the ball up, but you can't put sidespin on it."

Steve Flesch concurs. He dropped his ball-endorsement deal for the '07 season after going winless since 2004, experimenting with different models until he found a Srixon ball that suited his control game better. Playing it for free, he won twice.

And... 

Butch Harmon, who coaches Mickelson and Flesch among a flock of tour pros, says, "The young players today don't see an image of turning the ball around doglegs, and the equipment doesn't allow you to do it. The kids are stronger and have sounder swings, and they only see way up high -- they go over everything. It's a power game. You couldn't do that with the old equipment."

Obviously, fans are being cheated by not seeing as much in the way of interesting shotmaking and ball movement. Well, maybe someone stands behind a tee to study the height of tee shots. I don't.

But are today's elite players doing themselves a disservice playing balls sold commercially?