"Now, if the USGA would just stop slowing down play and increasing the cost of maintenance, and stop not having any control on the equipment, that would help."

I just love reading how we've transitioned from gently suggesting that chasing distance might be causing the scale of the game to go in the wrong direction, to flat out hostility toward the governing bodies. And it's well deserved!

Tom Mackin, interviewing Pete Dye in this month's Golf Magazine.

They have let the clubs get completely out of control. These guys today aren't stronger than Palmer or Nicklaus were -- it's the equipment. If they could help the high-handicappers and not the pros, that would be all right.

So you favor rolling back the ball?

Hell, yes. I have a letter written in 1923 by Donald Ross, who said the ball was getting out of control. That's 89 years ago. When it finally causes real financial trouble, something will happen. You just can't keep escalating the costs all the time.

And John Huggan caught up with Tom Kite in Scotland On Sunday. The former U.S. Open Champion and all-around USGA supporter has little in the way of nice things to say about the governing body.

“The belly putters and long putters are legal and both are wonderful ways to putt,” he says. “But I don’t think they are good for golf. When it comes to equipment, the USGA and the R&A have been very neglectful. It all goes back to the Ping case in the early 1980s. When the authorities tried to make a rule about the shape and width of grooves on irons they found themselves being sued. And, because they didn’t have the money to risk losing, they ended up having to settle. Which was a disaster. They backed down and haven’t stood up to anything else since.

“It can’t be good for the manufacturers to run the game. The equipment is a huge part of why golf is struggling to grow. Yet the manufacturers say that people are having more fun. Well, if that is so, why aren’t they playing? The answer is simple. Ask anyone who doesn’t play golf why they don’t and they typically give one of two answers. Either the game is too expensive or it takes too long to play.”