Although technology has advanced to the point where golf clubs can launch the ball much farther than the equpment currently on the market will allow, the sport's two governing bodies -- the United States Golf Association and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club -- set limits on clubs' potency.
St. Andrews Golf Club head pro Dave Erickson, for one, is all for establishing such guidelines.
"Some of the skill has been taken away with the big-headed driver and the distance of the golf ball," he said. "A little of the skill is gone to where people can swing very, very hard at the ball, out of control, and they can still find the ball because of these big heads, where maybe with a smaller head you needed to keep your balance a little better.
Rendering courses obsolete would be another byproduct of unleashing drives of, say, 400 yards on a regular basis.
"There are so many golf courses that might be 7,000 yards and they might be beautiful golf courses; if all of a sudden you just let loose and let a golf ball go as far as you can make it go, you're really going to make golf courses obsolete," Erickson said. "You're going to make golf more expensive because now you've got to take care of 8,000 yards instead of 7,000. It's that much more fertilizer, that much more cutting of the grass, much more time to take care of it.
"And all these other courses, what are you going to do, just walk away from them because they're so short? I think there has to be a limit on this stuff and keep part of the game to where it's the skill of the player and not the clubs."
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