borntobesting:It might be nice but playing on the faster green speeds will help the players in the long run. They will know how to putt on the fastest green speeds when that is their default speed.
I agree with that idea, and I habitually tried to match up with higher tiered opponents when playing stroke play matches nightly. But the idea here is to try to make our Country Club tournaments a more level playing field for all. It is not fair to expect a Pro or Tour Pro tiered player to reasonably compete against Legends and up on greens with a speed of 13, even with the huge tee box advantage they get on many courses. They don’t have access to the equipment that we do, and won’t for some time. Nor do I think it is fair to expect them to be able to compete against the same players on greens with speeds of 9 or 10. Once again we (the upper tiered players) can stick an approach shot a lot closer on a more regular basis due to our equipment.
Say what you want about practice and experience, but it is the balls and clubs we use that allow us to be as repetitive as we are on shots. I am not saying the practice and experience are wasted, quite the contrary they are an integral portion of the learning curve. In fact, they probably are really more important than the equipment, but I still say the equipment gives us an almost impossible to overcome edge.
We hold a monthly 9-hole tournament using the “set of the week” clubs from the medium tee’s and green speeds of 10. We request everyone to use one of the special balls (i.e. fireworks, champagne, beer, cat, hearts, etc.). Guess what almost always 3 of the top 5 are players are Master or below & level 55 or less.