[HDPM]

Yeah, the technology isn't going to help the scores of the average player all that much. Also, a huge problem that only some people are talking about is the expense of golf caused by the equipment. Forget the 500 driver and the 300 rangefinder, think about the problems caused by the golf ball going 7 miles for people with high swing speeds. Mediocre designer du jour now builds a mediocre 7600 yard course. That takes more land. So it costs more. And all the landing areas have to be bigger, so it takes much more land, so it costs more. And now there is a lot of room between the holes and from the tips the course is long, so people don't like walking it. So they take carts, and that drives up the cost. And people have been taught golf courses are very lush with greens that stimp pretty fast, and that costs more. And to challenge the 23 year old with 117 MPH swing speed, the course is tricked up and phony from the mediocre designer. So the average player doesn't get the huge jumps in distance from the optimization, because a lot of those only happen at high swing speeds. And he plays from a set of tees he shouldn't of course because that is what guys do. So his score may actually go up because of all the wonderful technology. It will cost more, so he will play less. It will take longer, so he will play less. And some numbers are showing fewer people are playing or at least that there is no growth in players. Golf is becoming more expensive and actually less fun with the technology. I posted a while ago about how the abominable cart started the decline a long time ago, by allowing long unwalkable courses.

Maybe I will pull up my old post, but until then I will add an anecdote. My parents have a house at an old peoples' place in the palm springs area. Golf courses designed by a mediocre designer. They cost a lot to play and are kept in very good shape. There were forced carries. unbelievable at an old peoples community. Mandatory carts of course. So you have people die sooner because they don't walk. They lose strength and compress their spines riding around. And then there are forced carries once in a while. So they pay for the privilege of frustrating golf and being hurt physically. I compared it to a muni I used to play where there was a 95 year old who walked and carried his bag. dirt cheap to play too. So what is better? The modern trends suck.