Hi Dave,
To answer that I think you have to ask "Why do we play the game?" I don't think we play to score well, perhaps not even the pro's. I think we play for the challenge of hitting the ball well. And we play because it is an escape from our daily lives. And we play because it is a male dominated environment. A golfer will comment on a low score, but they will tell everyone they see about a really good shot. Probably the best evidence that we don't play to score well comes from our behavior. We don't do the things that would cause us to score well. Most of us would score much better if we left our drivers in the attic, including the pros. Mickelson is doing better because he is hitting his three wood off the tee more often. Woods probably would too. But they, and we, drag our drivers out at every chance. It's adds challenge to the game. It makes it more difficult, hence the rewards of success are greater. We really don't want the game to get easy.
Got to go to work,
Alan
At 12:38 PM 5/26/2004 -0400, you wrote:
It is generally agreed that the average handicap has not dropped in the past ten years. (I have seen references. All estimate the ten-year change between 0 and 0.25 strokes improvement.)
Why do you think this is, given all the improvements in golf club and ball technology over the same period?
BTW, this lack of improvement on average also seems to be true for the tour professionals. So I can't write it off to a huge influx of novices dominating the stats.
DaveT
