The one element of the game that could address all issues posted is simply the distance players are hitting golf shots. Because the USGA, R&A, and all others involved decided that the business model of golf would be hinged on the success of equipment manufacturers and subsequently allowed ball and club technology to get simply ridiculous, they allowed for:

Increased cost: There is no reason that golf shouldn't be a sport very much like tennis, where the technology you are using helps but, in reality, is not a key feature of the sport. The matter of fact is that what matters in golf is how good we are *relative to one another. If the rules of golf severely constrained what you can do with golf clubs, there'd be no nonsense with always "improved speed", "faster face", or any of the other ridiculousness we end up paying money for that DOES NOT go towards playing golf. We pay these not because we want to hit "far", but because we want to hit "farther" than our counterparts. A 300yd 30 yrs ago would've been insane. Today, its more like 370yd.... what's the diff? No reason we couldn't dial EVERYONE back.

• Increased cost part deux: With the ridiculous distance that clubs are now going, courses have to lengthen in order to keep their relative difficulty. That translates into more land, which costs more in all kinds of dimensions, from staff for upkeep, to water, to land-related taxes. And, you guessed, you, the golfer, end up paying for that extra cost.

*Time to play: What people miss about the complaints of pace of play is that people are generally not ever complaining about the total amount of time spent in a round. /u/GIRequals3putt makes a great point with the ski analogy. I played a round at Pebble Beach where the course was practically empty, and leisurely walked a 5.5hr hour round, taking pictures, enjoying the sights, sittin' by the tree on #6... but that could've been an entirely different story if I had actually instead spent the same 5.5hrs just waiting on tee boxes. What we REALLY complain about in terms of pace, is the time spent on course/(actual fun golfing activities) ratio. And, you guessed it, more length just adds to this problem. More length = More walking, more wayward shots, more walking to tee boxes, more waiting for people to clear your landing zone for your drive, etc. i.e. More time that you are doing things which are not really related to actually playing golf

Wanna fix golf? Recognize that today the game is set-up to meet the interests of equipment manufacturers, and not golfers, and address those dynamics.

And in case anyone really disputes the distance argument... tell me the 6800yd Merion was not a good test of golf at the US Open. Golf could be like that... all over.

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