USGA and R&A announce proposal to limit golf ball performance for elite level competition

[Ty_Webb]

28 minutes ago, gvogel said:

Yes, and move the tee markers up 15 yards to compensate.  It would be a move toward shorter courses, which would be a good thing.

 

So now we're building new tees because of the nerfed ball? I thought this was supposed to save money? They're not going to move the markers up or build new tees. Those poor sods are just going to have to deal with being shorter and struggling more and taking longer to play. 

[airjammer]

1 hour ago, isaacbm said:

Our sweet spot is often 6500 yards. basically the yardage where the course rating is close to even par .

Nearly every golf course in our area has tee boxes that are longer than that. A few of the newer courses are almost 7800. Literally no interest in playing from there at all. 
   I do see your point of view. I still think the only real answer if this even is a problem is biurification. Make one ball that is a Nerf ball and anybody can use that at any time and then simply re rate the golf courses based on the new distance.  Every course would have two ratings based on which ball you use. Needs to be 20% minimum. 
 

This  way, you’re actually creating options for people instead of taking them away.

I just don’t see a need to make 2 balls when you literally can drive or walk a few yards up the hole at most courses and play a tee 20%ish closer to the hole that’s free to everyone including the ball manufacturers. 

1 hour ago, isaacbm said:

The reason why they are very few golf courses over 7000 yards is because there are very few people who need them.  For every one of you that thinks golf courses are too short, there are literally 1500 people that would never even consider that a thing. 
   My (very anecdotal) remarks were simply that almost everyone I know that has a very high swing speed and are very low handicap players don’t think golf courses are too short. 

As I alluded to in my other post, basically not many people choose the harder task and if given the option would prefer to do a task that makes themselves feel good about what they are trying to do.  
 

You make the case that driving or just about driving a 3rd of the greens on that 6400 course can make someone feel good but that’s just technology turning the golf course into a glorified par 3 course. 
 

This type of decision is difficult because everyone knows there is a portion of the population that will negatively affected as with almost any decision. If no one cared about history at all then this wouldn’t be a issue because every single shot would viewed has a singularity instead of a collective. That’s not how we like to view sports among other things. 

[James the Hogan Fan]

57 minutes ago, TroyB123 said:

That would include NCAA and even AJGA gets you into one event.   If you include ability to qualify into a major, then you get everything above the state open line in my list.   

 

Bi-furcation was never as neat and tidy as it sounded.   Competitive players are all going to play a mix of different lines on that list, and to have to play different balls for different events every week is not really ideal.   Once you start to include all the levels of competitive golf, it's more like 10s or 100s of thousands of people affected.

 

At the end of the day doesn't that just mean its another adjustment to make? I imagine they'd wind up making a short ball and a long ball that had similar feel, so the only thing to worry about would be number. Yes some would adjust better, some wouldn't, but that'd just be luck of the draw. You'd play the ProV1 this week and the ProV0.94 the next. 

 

I'm not in support of that I don't think, but wouldn't complain to hard if that's the direction they went. 

[smashdn]

43 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

So now we're building new tees because of the nerfed ball? I thought this was supposed to save money? They're not going to move the markers up or build new tees. Those poor sods are just going to have to deal with being shorter and struggling more and taking longer to play. 

 

 

Tee markers /= tee boxes

 

Some courses have an additional two rated tee sets starting in the actual fairways for youth players.  They are unobtrusive, flush-with-turf metal plates not unlike a yardage marker but are color coded like any other tee set and have slope and course rating.  The most forward sets are supposed to be approximately 3,000y/18  and 4,000y/18 for the more rearward.  They slot in nicely in front of the traditional most forward tees (which I think are at times still too long) and do not require the construction of an actual tee box.

[GoGoErky]

1 hour ago, gvogel said:

Yes, and move the tee markers up 15 yards to compensate.  It would be a move toward shorter courses, which would be a good thing.

They are already at the front tees and courses aren’t goin to create new shorter tees or tee boxes so no you can’t just move the tee markers up 15 yards, not to mention there’s no course rating and slope and those who keep a handicap then lose out.

 

 

[GoGoErky]

1 hour ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

Fair- Lots of stuff going on in this post.  
 

I guess we have different ideas of the vast majority of golfers.  My idea is what I anecdotally encounter while playing public courses and corporate tournaments.  The golfers I get randomly paired up with this via those two avenues are out to have fun and generally don’t care what they shoot.

 

Now I would say the other group is my core group of friends, people who track handicaps, and the Internet forum golfers.  This is a relatively small number (2-4 million) of the overall golfing population (26 million) in the US.  

Those golfers are still going to have score issues when they lose 4-10 yards. Longer shots into the greens lead to higher scores. This isn’t a hard concept. 

[smashdn]

1 minute ago, GoGoErky said:

They are already at the front tees and courses aren’t goin to create new shorter tees or tee boxes so no you can’t just move the tee markers up 15 yards, not to mention there’s no course rating and slope and those who keep a handicap then lose out.

 

They actually do already.  And more demand would put more pressure on courses that haven't done so to get on board.

[GoGoErky]

1 minute ago, smashdn said:

 

They actually do already.  And more demand would put more pressure on courses that haven't done so to get on board.

There are two courses I play that have them and they are both on a military base.

 

So we go from no impact to the general golfer to force the courses to create new teeing grounds to accommodate the loss of distance.

 

 

[smashdn]

Just now, GoGoErky said:

There are two courses I play that have them and they are both on a military base.

 

So why would you then post the falsehood you did if you knew courses could do that?

 

Just now, GoGoErky said:

So we go from no impact to the general golfer to force the courses to create new teeing grounds to accommodate the loss of distance.

 

Nobody is forcing anyone to do spit.  If you start hoarding now you can have enough "old spec" golf balls to last the rest of your playing life.

 

A course doesn't have to do it if they don't want to either.  All in what they want to be and what they are designed for.  They certainly don't have to be all things to all people.  We don't have the plates at my club but the local public course does.

 

I doubt Pine Valley has a set of family tees or is interested in putting them in.

[Pnwpingi210]

15 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

Those golfers are still going to have score issues when they lose 4-10 yards. Longer shots into the greens lead to higher scores. This isn’t a hard concept. 

Which group?

 

I would say both groups do.  
 

the point is the first group, and overwhelming majority, what they score isnt what gets them out of the course.

 

 The second group - yes, they potentially will have impacts on score.  To what degree is determine by their individual strengths and weaknesses.  It will have a noticeable impact on their experience.

Edited April 30 by Pnwpingi210

[Ashley Schaeffer]

15 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

Those golfers are still going to have score issues when they lose 4-10 yards. Longer shots into the greens lead to higher scores. This isn’t a hard concept. 

But they will get to interact with historical features designed by renowned municipal course architects like Rusty and Larry, who decided to dig that FW bunker at 140yds on #2 at Stankwood GC after sharing a fifth of Black Velvet.  That more than makes up for any distance loss/increased score.  If I know one thing about the annual passholders at Stankwood, it's that they value classic course design features above all else.

[GoGoErky]

1 hour ago, smashdn said:

 

So why would you then post the falsehood you did if you knew courses could do that?

I said courses aren’t going to do it. If they liked that idea they would already be doing it. Those courses on the military base have it set up for the kids on base to have a place to play from. The tee boxes are usually well down the fairway and not near the rest of the tee boxes.

1 hour ago, smashdn said:

A course doesn't have to do it if they don't want to either.  All in what they want to be and what they are designed for.  They certainly don't have to be all things to all people.  We don't have the plates at my club but the local public course does.

 

I doubt Pine Valley has a set of family tees or is interested in putting them in.

So now courses that make any changes are ones they decide to make or not make. Wouldn’t that be the reason courses are adding distance (still not true) are doing it because they want to and not because they have to or are forced to?

[betarhoalphadelta]

2 hours ago, bekgolf said:

The PGA Tour already said they aren't interested in a shorter ball.  IIRC that's what brought about a shorter ball for everyone, because the USGA wants to limit distance on the PGA Tour.

 

Very few are in favor of this.  The USGA is showing how out of touch they are with the golfers they are supposed to represent and support.

 

BTW I've said this a dozen times or so, but I don't think the PGA Tour cares, to be honest. However, the PGA Tour has to sell advertising on broadcasts, and ball manufacturers buy a lot of those ads. Therefore the PGA Tour may care what the ball manufacturers care about, if it affects their ability to sell ads. The same is true of PGA Tour players. They are sponsored by the ball manufacturers, so by definition will care what the manufacturers think, if it affects their sponsorship value. 

 

The ball manufacturers are IMHO vehemently opposed to bifurcation. How does Titleist market "the #1 ball in golf" if all the pros are playing a nerfed ball that amateurs aren't going to want to play? 

 

So I firmly believe that the only reason the PGA Tour said they wouldn't adopt the MLR is that the ball manufacturers leaned on them hard and said we're going to slash our advertising budgets for your broadcasts if you adopt the MLR. And I'm assuming they told their contracted players that the sponsorship dollars would be greatly reduced if the MLR was adopted by the PGA Tour. And the players would then apply pressure to the Tour themselves not to adopt it. 

 

And so the interests all aligned, even though I doubt the PGA Tour cares. 

 

They called the USGA/R&A's bluff about the MLR, and now they can be the good guys who stood firm against a rollback and turned the USGA/R&A into the bad guys for applying it to everyone. 

[bekgolf]

18 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

BTW I've said this a dozen times or so, but I don't think the PGA Tour cares, to be honest. However, the PGA Tour has to sell advertising on broadcasts, and ball manufacturers buy a lot of those ads. Therefore the PGA Tour may care what the ball manufacturers care about, if it affects their ability to sell ads. The same is true of PGA Tour players. They are sponsored by the ball manufacturers, so by definition will care what the manufacturers think, if it affects their sponsorship value. 

 

The ball manufacturers are IMHO vehemently opposed to bifurcation. How does Titleist market "the #1 ball in golf" if all the pros are playing a nerfed ball that amateurs aren't going to want to play? 

 

So I firmly believe that the only reason the PGA Tour said they wouldn't adopt the MLR is that the ball manufacturers leaned on them hard and said we're going to slash our advertising budgets for your broadcasts if you adopt the MLR. And I'm assuming they told their contracted players that the sponsorship dollars would be greatly reduced if the MLR was adopted by the PGA Tour. And the players would then apply pressure to the Tour themselves not to adopt it. 

 

And so the interests all aligned, even though I doubt the PGA Tour cares. 

 

They called the USGA/R&A's bluff about the MLR, and now they can be the good guys who stood firm against a rollback and turned the USGA/R&A into the bad guys for applying it to everyone. 

 

I think the PGA Tour is against it because it will make their product less appealing to us, the consumers that advertising is sold to.  Fewer viewers would mean fewer ad monies coming in.  Like you I've been posting this thought several times, lol.

 

To me it's akin to the NFL changing to flag football.  Almost everything is still the same but tackles are now verboten and replaced with taking a flag.  They would lose viewers and advertising money.  This is my first sports analogy in this thread and will be my last. 

 

A reduced distance ball makes golf almost the same as it is now except it takes out the risk of going for it because the ball just won't go far enough.  IMO that would result in all players playing it safe all the time.  Always playing it safe would be fairly boring. 

 

Maybe they will move bunkers and other hazards to be in play with a reduced distance ball to bring back the excitement of a player taking a big risk for a big reward?  Who knows? 

 

I like it just the way it is and don't want to see this change.  Golf is very exciting with the equipment rules that are already in place.

 

[Pnwpingi210]

16 minutes ago, bekgolf said:

 

I think the PGA Tour is against it because it will make their product less appealing to us, the consumers that advertising is sold to.  Fewer viewers would mean fewer ad monies coming in.  Like you I've been posting this thought several times, lol.

 

To me it's akin to the NFL changing to flag football.  Almost everything is still the same but tackles are now verboten and replaced with taking a flag.  They would lose viewers and advertising money.  This is my first sports analogy in this thread and will be my last. 

 

A reduced distance ball makes golf almost the same as it is now except it takes out the risk of going for it because the ball just won't go far enough.  IMO that would result in all players playing it safe all the time.  Always playing it safe would be fairly boring. 

 

Maybe they will move bunkers and other hazards to be in play with a reduced distance ball to bring back the excitement of a player taking a big risk for a big reward?  Who knows? 

 

I like it just the way it is and don't want to see this change.  Golf is very exciting with the equipment rules that are already in place.

 

I would think a better analogy is a football that travels less far?

 

 A few percent  reduction of flight on a ball traveling 300 yards seems pretty trivial compared to the almost complete reduction of contact in a contact sport.    
 

Understand your sentiment, but that’s taking it to an extreme.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

15 minutes ago, bekgolf said:

 

I think the PGA Tour is against it because it will make their product less appealing to us, the consumers that advertising is sold to.  Fewer viewers would mean fewer ad monies coming in.  Like you I've been posting this thought several times, lol.

 

To me it's akin to the NFL changing to flag football.  Almost everything is still the same but tackles are now verboten and replaced with taking a flag.  They would lose viewers and advertising money.  This is my first sports analogy in this thread and will be my last. 

 

A reduced distance ball makes golf almost the same as it is now except it takes out the risk of going for it because the ball just won't go far enough.  IMO that would result in all players playing it safe all the time.  Always playing it safe would be fairly boring. 

 

Maybe they will move bunkers and other hazards to be in play with a reduced distance ball to bring back the excitement of a player taking a big risk for a big reward?  Who knows? 

 

I like it just the way it is and don't want to see this change.  Golf is very exciting with the equipment rules that are already in place.

 

 

Bear in mind, I'm anti-rollback. I just don't the PGA Tour not adopting the MLR was necessarily indicative about how they feel about rolling back the ball. But my fellow anti-rollback compadres often point to it as such. 

 

I suspect that the PGA Tour will roll with the rollback (pun intended) and nothing is going to change regarding the popularity of the Tour. I don't think they oppose or favor the rollback; I think they opposed the MLR. And I think they opposed the MLR because of their stakeholders who saw bifurcation as bad for business. 

 

IMHO it's more akin to the rule change the NFL is apparently putting into place this year to change kickoffs. It's fundamentally a change made on the margin, and viewers are still going to watch. 

[bekgolf]

4 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

I would think a better analogy is a football that travels less far?

 

 A few percent  reduction of flight on a ball traveling 300 yards seems pretty trivial compared to the almost complete reduction of contact in a contact sport.    
 

Understand your sentiment, but that’s taking it to an extreme.  

 

I agree 100%.  I try to stay away from analogies because there usually isn't a direct comparison.  I was attempting to point out that the sport would be less exciting for some viewers, the same as I feel about a reduced distance ball.

[Simpsonia]

2 hours ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

BTW I've said this a dozen times or so, but I don't think the PGA Tour cares, to be honest. However, the PGA Tour has to sell advertising on broadcasts, and ball manufacturers buy a lot of those ads. Therefore the PGA Tour may care what the ball manufacturers care about, if it affects their ability to sell ads. The same is true of PGA Tour players. They are sponsored by the ball manufacturers, so by definition will care what the manufacturers think, if it affects their sponsorship value. 

 

The ball manufacturers are IMHO vehemently opposed to bifurcation. How does Titleist market "the #1 ball in golf" if all the pros are playing a nerfed ball that amateurs aren't going to want to play? 

 

So I firmly believe that the only reason the PGA Tour said they wouldn't adopt the MLR is that the ball manufacturers leaned on them hard and said we're going to slash our advertising budgets for your broadcasts if you adopt the MLR. And I'm assuming they told their contracted players that the sponsorship dollars would be greatly reduced if the MLR was adopted by the PGA Tour. And the players would then apply pressure to the Tour themselves not to adopt it. 

 

And so the interests all aligned, even though I doubt the PGA Tour cares. 

 

They called the USGA/R&A's bluff about the MLR, and now they can be the good guys who stood firm against a rollback and turned the USGA/R&A into the bad guys for applying it to everyone. 

 

While the PGAT was a large part of it, Mike Whan is on record that it wasn't just the PGAT. Actually, I think the PGAT was probably a smaller part of it than many think. There were many organizations including mini-tours, collegiate associations, state/regional competitive associations, etc that all reached out to the USGA and advocate against bifurcation/MLR. The big question was where is the line drawn, and then how can that line be realistically enforced. Almost none of the associations outside of the PGAT have the resources to effectively police something like that on their own. It was going to lead to an enforcement nightmare, or even worse for the USGA optics, dozens of associations refusing to abide by the MLR due to said nightmare. 

[Ty_Webb]

2 hours ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

And I think they opposed the MLR because of their stakeholders who saw bifurcation as bad for business. 

 

If only the USGA had as much respect for their stakeholders...

[betarhoalphadelta]

30 minutes ago, Simpsonia said:

 

While the PGAT was a large part of it, Mike Whan is on record that it wasn't just the PGAT. Actually, I think the PGAT was probably a smaller part of it than many think. There were many organizations including mini-tours, collegiate associations, state/regional competitive associations, etc that all reached out to the USGA and advocate against bifurcation/MLR. The big question was where is the line drawn, and then how can that line be realistically enforced. Almost none of the associations outside of the PGAT have the resources to effectively police something like that on their own. It was going to lead to an enforcement nightmare, or even worse for the USGA optics, dozens of associations refusing to abide by the MLR due to said nightmare. 

 

All that might be true. 

 

Either way, the incentives for the PGAT not to implement the MLR are the same. Their stakeholders would have been anti-bifurcation, whereas I'm not sure any of them care ALL that much about the ball rollback. 

 

33 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

If only the USGA had as much respect for their stakeholders...

 

Well, they've got this magic ball, you see...

[North Butte]

3 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

Well, they've got this magic ball, you see...

I think the magic ball has been suppressed, just like those 200mpg carburetors my crazy uncle was always talking about when I was a kid. The big oil companies bought them up, you see, and hid them away because it would cost them millions in lost gasoline sales. 

 

Titleist designed a magic ball years ago that will actually fly f'ing backward if struck at more than 130mph clubhead speed, yet still go 250 yards for 85mph swings. They just suppressed it because it would cost them too many Pro V1 sales.

 

But USGA know it's out there so they're rejiggering the Rules to force Titleist to release the magic ball.

[Shilgy]

4 hours ago, GoGoErky said:

I said courses aren’t going to do it. If they liked that idea they would already be doing it. Those courses on the military base have it set up for the kids on base to have a place to play from. The tee boxes are usually well down the fairway and not near the rest of the tee boxes.

So now courses that make any changes are ones they decide to make or not make. Wouldn’t that be the reason courses are adding distance (still not true) are doing it because they want to and not because they have to or are forced to?

Funny isn’t it? I was about to post the same comment but finished reading the other posts here first.  Not surprising you get the confused look from someone when you make the perfect analogy saying courses CHOOSE TO add tees whether they are up or back.

 

But NO!  They are just forced to add length don’t ya know!🤣

[GoGoErky]

4 minutes ago, Shilgy said:

Funny isn’t it? I was about to post the same comment but finished reading the other posts here first.  Not surprising you get the confused look from someone when you make the perfect analogy saying courses CHOOSE TO add tees whether they are up or back.

 

But NO!  They are just forced to add length don’t ya know!🤣

Yea crazy right. Confused by their own logic 

[Pnwpingi210]

17 minutes ago, Shilgy said:

Funny isn’t it? I was about to post the same comment but finished reading the other posts here first.  Not surprising you get the confused look from someone when you make the perfect analogy saying courses CHOOSE TO add tees whether they are up or back.

 

But NO!  They are just forced to add length don’t ya know!🤣

I didn’t use the confused emoji, but after reading the back and forth on it maybe I didn’t understand.  I think the original point being made is it’s cheaper to add tee markers further up the existing fairway (only the cost of the tee marker and whatever maintenance cost is associated with the daily moving for mowing and turf repair) vs the clearing out and potential constructing and portion of hittable area behind the furthest back tees that currently have exist on the course.

 

The argument or response was clubs won’t choose to do this anyway, likely because most people don’t want to play a tee box any farther forward given the choice and won’t use it.

 

Is that where that discussion ended?

[Titleist99]

7 hours ago, gvogel said:

So the PGA Tour can elect to play with balls made under the current spec.  They will surely be available, and if the Tour continues to use current spec balls then a majority of recreational players will probably do the same.

 

So then you will have the two Opens and the Masters and a few other tournaments  played with the USGA spec ball.  Fine, golf will be played a few years with a schism between the two.  After a few years, I bet a consensus will emerge - and my money is on the USGA spec ball.

This would be just fine with me. Hopefully, the PGAT would also boycott the two Opens. That way only amateurs and Liv players would attend. Yes!😎

[Ty_Webb]

12 hours ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

I didn’t use the confused emoji, but after reading the back and forth on it maybe I didn’t understand.  I think the original point being made is it’s cheaper to add tee markers further up the existing fairway (only the cost of the tee marker and whatever maintenance cost is associated with the daily moving for mowing and turf repair) vs the clearing out and potential constructing and portion of hittable area behind the furthest back tees that currently have exist on the course.

 

The argument or response was clubs won’t choose to do this anyway, likely because most people don’t want to play a tee box any farther forward given the choice and won’t use it.

 

Is that where that discussion ended?

 

Don't quote me on this, but I think the suggestion was made that courses could just add another tee 15 yards in front of the current front tee. Most courses I know this would be in the rough, so they'll have to construct a new tee (which costs money). When this was pointed out, the story changed to "oh well, just put a tee box in the fairway then". Notwithstanding the point that the fairway could be 50-100 yards in front of the current front tee, I doubt if many people who are used to playing from teeboxes are going to be happy to play from the fairway. So people are going to hit it shorter, play from the same tees and therefore take longer to play. And lord knows we all know that golf is played too quickly as it is /s

[GoGoErky]

38 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

Don't quote me on this, but I think the suggestion was made that courses could just add another tee 15 yards in front of the current front tee. Most courses I know this would be in the rough, so they'll have to construct a new tee (which costs money). When this was pointed out, the story changed to "oh well, just put a tee box in the fairway then". Notwithstanding the point that the fairway could be 50-100 yards in front of the current front tee, I doubt if many people who are used to playing from teeboxes are going to be happy to play from the fairway. So people are going to hit it shorter, play from the same tees and therefore take longer to play. And lord knows we all know that golf is played too quickly as it is /s

Basically summed it up. The part about the tee boxes in the fairway was to indicate in the reply that the courses which have added tee markers somewhere forward of the current tee boxes did so for the young kids and thus put them in the fairway much further up the course than just in front of the most forward tee. So a par 4 is now 250ish in some cases rather than the 350+ from the normal tee boxes.

 

 

[Pnwpingi210]

59 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

Don't quote me on this, but I think the suggestion was made that courses could just add another tee 15 yards in front of the current front tee. Most courses I know this would be in the rough, so they'll have to construct a new tee (which costs money). When this was pointed out, the story changed to "oh well, just put a tee box in the fairway then". Notwithstanding the point that the fairway could be 50-100 yards in front of the current front tee, I doubt if many people who are used to playing from teeboxes are going to be happy to play from the fairway. So people are going to hit it shorter, play from the same tees and therefore take longer to play. And lord knows we all know that golf is played too quickly as it is /s

Got it.

 

Makes sense and thank you.  That was mostly my understanding.
 

there are a number of course I play that the tee boxes are really just manicured sections of the fairways with tee markers and a little wood box for broken tees for almost all tees.  The exception seems to be the par three holes which seeming get and elevated (3-6 feet) mound with a flattened top as a tee box.

 

If they do go forward with the rollback, they do need to recommend tee box designation by how far you hit the ball and not your gender/skill level.  Should probably do that today.  Sounds like from this thread a large percentage of the golfing population should be playing red and yellow tees currently.

Edited May 1 by Pnwpingi210

[TLUBulldogGolf]

1 hour ago, Ty_Webb said:

 

Don't quote me on this, but I think the suggestion was made that courses could just add another tee 15 yards in front of the current front tee. Most courses I know this would be in the rough, so they'll have to construct a new tee (which costs money). When this was pointed out, the story changed to "oh well, just put a tee box in the fairway then". Notwithstanding the point that the fairway could be 50-100 yards in front of the current front tee, I doubt if many people who are used to playing from teeboxes are going to be happy to play from the fairway. So people are going to hit it shorter, play from the same tees and therefore take longer to play. And lord knows we all know that golf is played too quickly as it is /s

 

Has longer modern equipment made people play faster? Your slash s would seem to indicate not..

Edited May 1 by TLUBulldogGolf

[Ty_Webb]

3 minutes ago, TLUBulldogGolf said:

 

Has longer modern equipment made people play faster?

 

If it makes them hit it further and straighter (which it apparently should do), then yes people will play faster. Hitting it further means hitting it fewer times and hitting it straighter means less times looking for the ball, both of which take less time.