Effect on Golf
The USGA's, "For the good of the game®" is more than just a motto. The USGA has been engaged in a ceaseless struggle to maintain a historically level playing field in the sense that today's golfers should not be able to purchase a competitive edge in today's world of advanced science and high technology, i.e. golfers should not be able to buy better performance by simply obtaining technology that gives them an edge over those who do not possess the technology. At odds with the USGA, golf club manufacturers have struggled for the past two decades to gain a competitive market share advantage by creating technology that would allow golfers to buy a better game by simply acquiring the technology. Because the winning scores on the PGA Tour have been falling for decades, both the USGA and the club manufacturers became so absorbed on technology that both overlooked the need to prove the link between falling scores on the PGA Tour and technology. When you actually examine the scoring data and look for the link to technology, what you find is that any link, if one exists at all, is very tenuous at best. There is little or no evidence that any modern golf club technological advances are responsible for any of the apparent reductions in scores on the PGA Tour. And there is no evidence at all that technology has lowered the scores of average golfers; nor have manufacturers provided any credible evidence that technology has improved ball striking for average golfers.
Project Golf 2020 and the National Golf Foundation have found that over the last decade, "Golf has been very successful in attracting new participants, ranging from 1.5 to 3 million per year. The problem though, has been one of retention. As many are leaving as are entering the game. The industry has not been able to deliver an "experience" that stimulates more golfers to stay with the game nor has the industry been able to provide an "experience" that motivates the average golfer to play more often." According to NGF, "Average scores have changed very little over the years." Handicap studies at the USGA confirm this. Follow up studies found that ball striking ability is the single most important key to enjoyment of the game. In fact, ball striking is 3-5 times more influential than score, course conditions, competition and exercise. If "game-improvement" clubs actually work, would these observations be expected?
While the USGA might be tempted to believe that my analysis proving there is no evidence that any modern "improvement" in golf club design or technology has lowered the score of a single golfer is a testament to how well the USGA has lived up to its goal, I suspect that genuine technological achievements could be being masked by the more powerful interferences described in EIG.
After seventy years of little or no genuine progress, if every golfer could now predictably improve their own ball striking using clubs with EIG designs, more golfers than ever before should be able to learn the benefits and get more enjoyment from this great game. In complete contrast to buying performance enhancing technology, EIG's designs simply remove an existing impediment to performance allowing all golfers to reach and realize their own full golfing potential. EIG's designs will be "conforming clubs" and no one will raise any issue of non-conformance.