Stay with me here for a min. people...I recently watched the "Wendy's 3 Tour Challenge" as I'm sure some of you did as well, but for those who are not familiar with it , 3 LPGA , 3 PGA , and 3 Champions tour players played 18 holes in a best ball type format. The reason I bring this up in this thread is that the tournament set up was (IMO) as equal as you could possibly get. At the tour level as far as equipment is concerned all things being equal , meaning all 9 bags were top of the line. Examples , and then to the point. Although the ladies par 3's were lets say 155 and the men 182 , they were all pulling the same club from the bag. Another is an approach where Dustin Johnson hit a 250 yard 5 wood to 6 ft. Same hole , Suzann Pettersen has 223 to the hole , pulls 3 wood , ends up about 15 yards long, so she could have in reality hit the 5w and probably ran it on. If Dustin and Suzann traded Drivers, he's still gonna' hit it 335 or so and she 280 or so, so the equality here is tee placement AND physical strength. At WGT , my finger is as strong as Jakes , so my idea is a strength based system NOT based on gender, but by tier. Hacks would have a range , pro's would have a range , and so on. We all keep our tee box and equipment , but legends won't be getting blown by off the tee by a lower tier, or hitting 3 iron in against a 9 iron. You would increase your range as you advanced in tier, and if lower tiers wanted to take advantage of better precision, more spin,etc. I think they would still purchase / upgrade equipment, so I see no loss in sales at the pro-shop and a much more level field. Anyway, at the very least I've given you something to throw around for a day or two.
Ace