lee22sharon: If I have a fat enough wallet I can go out to the open market and buy any equipment I desire, that is real! Of course there is a closed market where no one can buy some equipment. I respect that manufactor's who sponser professionals may keep cetain equipment to theirselves.
Yah and u look pretty silly hittin from the lady's tees with $3000 worth of the best real life clubs you can buy. I can see a guy decked out in all the elite, pga pro level Titleist gear... teeing up his ProV1 from the lady's tees lol.... even from the whites it's pretty LOL.
Equipment must be Tiered based. The levels incentive can still apply because you can "level up" within that tier to unlock other equipment within the Tier.
So if you want the top gear and you are a L90+ Master, fine, you have earned it through your XP points. But when you buy the L90 gear (or whatever is deemed to be Legend Tier gear, maybe L79 or 83 whatever) ... you buy that gear and then you are made a Legend. You want to pay for the best gear and enjoy the best equipment?... fine you got to L90... u deserve it... but welcome to Legend and the big boy tees.
Part of this issue can be resolved by allowing tees to be configured in skins and MP challenges.
However, any non-Legend with all the best L90+ gear has a clear advantage over his lower level tier competitors in WGT sponsored tournaments. Let's face it people, at WGT, skill doesn't make the ball stop like a dart on the green from 215 yards out... only the R11 irons do that. So keeping equipment Tier based helps prevent sandbagging and is in the best interest of fairness.