Excellent illustration of a complex issue.

Hey, I drive the ball as far as the pros did in the 50's! I actually feel pretty good about that.

Id love to see how far DJ, JT, BW could drive the ball with a real wood and a ball from 50 years ago

Isn't the solution for pros to play a different ball to the amateurs? There are already lots of differences between the pro and amateur game. Pros play from different tees. Pros can't wear shorts...it seems more and more that they MUST wear white pants. If the pros used a different ball, the manufacturers can still make the current ball for amateurs and amateurs can still use their favorite pro's brand. And if any amateur actually wants to use a ball that flies 20% less than his playing partners, then so be it.

I hate watching Pro golf on TV these days especially the men because of the time it takes to play 18 holes. The LPGA is not nearly as bad and I usually watch them instead of the men. There is no way that a four player group should take more than an average of 15 minutes per hole and that is on a bad weather day, 4 hours should be max. And of course when you talk about your home course all the guys that watch TV think that if the pros can take that long there is no reason why they shouldn't do the same. I my opinion the ball nor the length of the course has anything to do with time of play. I do think there are two reasons for the slowness. The first reason is the TV coverage as they need the play slowed down so they can get as much sponsorship money as possible. The second reason is the amount of money that the pros are playing for. When the winner gets over one million dollars there is no wonder they take 2 to 4 minutes to make a shot when it should me no more than between 30 and 45 seconds. One easy way to speed up the game, put them on the clock for every shot, putts included, with a max of 40 seconds and a penalty of $5,000. if they take longer. The game would soon speed up and the amateurs would follow suit.

I've been a member of my club 50 years. It hasn't changed much except that it was a great deal faster to play in 1967 than it is now - by about 1 hour on average. I recently joined a second club. It expects everyone to play at a pace of 2 hours 10 mins per 9 holes. If you drop behind even a minute a message appears on your cart screen. Guess what? 18 holes takes 4hrs 20mins or less - almost without exception!

Hahaha. Let's see, who am I going to believe......Bradley S. Klein, Senior Hack or Jack Nicklaus, greatest golfer ever.

1. One look at a putt. No more doing a 360 or checking several angles.
2. Dump the yardage book. Too much time spent analyzing what’s in the book.

Nicklaus does not realize that he is partly responsible for the two worst issues facing golf-- slow play and high cost, two issues that are turning off a large segment of young potential golfers. Jack was himself the first very "deliberate" golfer and he was copied due to success. If Billy Casper had won 18 majors and not Jack, golf would be played a lot faster. Also Jack and his high priced designers are at least part of the problem of high cost. It's time we all stopped worshipping all he has to say.

I don't remember Mr. Nicklaus advocating for this kind of reduction when he was blowing it past everyone during his career. It seems a little disingenuous because the freak of a player he was then is being overshadowed by the "Tiger" kind of player that has evolved over time on the Tour. You can move players along by putting them on the clock and actually fining them when they have a shot clock violation. They'll be kicking and screaming but over a short period of time they will respond accordingly. If you REALLY wanted to speed up play reduce the overall purse of a tournament by 1% per shot clock violation - TV wouldn't be able to keep up with them then - LOL.

I recognize that shotmaking and distances have changed but the ball that Jack used wasn't the ball that Byron used that wasn't the ball that Bobby used that wasn't the ball that Old Tom used either. The fact that technology continues to advance against the finite yardages of golf courses may require caps at some point but dialing back the ball isn't in accordance with the history of the game.

Professionals can play faster if they want to. Back in the 1990's, Craig Perry was in last place on Sunday morning in a Nike Tour tournament in Lafayette LA. His potential playing partner had DQ'd the day before. Though he was offered a marker, he elected to play alone. He stated that he hoped to play quickly in order to catch an early flight to Atlanta for the next tournament on the PGA tour. The course, Le Triomphe, plays about 7300 yards. In addition, many holes have almost 100 yards green to tee as the course winds through a subdivision. In spite of these challenges, he played in about 1:35 and shot 69 (par 72). He appeared in the PGA tournament the following week and was on the leader board, though I can't remember where he finished. He was jogging between shots and sending his caddy ahead while he finished each hole.
Obviously, this is not practical for normal play, but the game could be sped up. Allowing the use of GPS for yardage would save a great amount of time without giving any player an unfair advantage. Putting players "on the clock" (like the NBA shot clock) would also improve pace of play. The clock would start after the player reached his ball and it was safe to play. A player could be given a limited number of "time outs" for rulings. These changes could easily reduce time to play a round by 15 -20 minutes.