Playdough
Hi.
I think that "x.x handicap hits y distance" has a faulty assumption built in. There are scratch golfers that carry 250 with a driver and scratch golfers that carry 300 with a driver. I had mentioned it way earlier in this thread, I think that even if the average distance of scratch and bogey golfers is similar now to 30 years ago, the standard deviation is much bigger, especially on the bogey side.
I came across this: http://www.milesofgolf.com/blog/golf-clubs/vintage-vs-technology/
Some interesting stuff in there. They tested old club tech against new club tech (up to 2009) using a range of testers. Some interesting points:
Interesting that the advent of the titanium driver made such a huge impact on driving distances. And more importantly, you get *more* benefit the faster you swing (i.e. long hitters gain more distance than short hitters switching from old clubs to new ones). That goes right along with what I'm saying--if you assume that swing speeds have stayed relatively constant, the spread between a long hitter and a short hitter has gotten wider.
I agree with this. But if the USGA wanted to continue to use a base yardage idea, with the new data they would have, i'm sure there would be sort of computational program or pattern they could use to revisit the idea every 5 years and stay up with the most current data.