No, I am talking about the introduction of the Sand Wedge from Gene Sarazan in the 1930's. There were sand wedges before and after Sarazan's, but his became the de facto standard. They were clearly invented to make getting out of the sand hazard much easier. In other words, players could buy the skill necessary to get out of the sand trap easier.
It it is *exactly* the correct analogy.
Freddie
Sorry but this is nonsense. You could say that about virtually any club in golf -- for long fairway shots they came up with the brassie or the spoon, for closer in they developed the mashie, and then for the really short range stuff the mashie niblick. The sand wedge was just another club invention at the time where there was a lot of innovation going on, starting with stuff like the sand wedge and continuing to steel shafts, rubber grips, dimpled golf balls, and eventually things like perimeter weighting, large head drivers, and now graphite shafts, mutli-piece balls and adjustable face angles. It's ALL designed to make the game easier to play. **
The difference is in those innovations that make the game
too easy, and things like square grooves, flex face drivers, or belly putters clearly fell into that category, which is why they are now banned. So apparently did the "shortie" jump cues and the old "gas powered" tips, which got banned as well.
So the debate is really whether the current jump cues fall into the former category or the latter. It's for sure true that the "sub40" jump cues clearly did, and I can remember for a long time that anything without a leather tip did as well. Maybe a way to solve the debate is to go to a 100% leather restriction, or to take the minimum length from 40" to 55" or something. Either way I'm in full agreement that the current jump cues make it way way too easy to execute perfect jump shots. But really they should just ban the jump shot altogether. It would make the game much more interesting.
** interestingly enough the USGA had some research that, despite all of golf's innovations in the last 50 or 60 years, the average handicap of casual golfers has only gone down something like a tenth of a stroke or so. Which I guess goes to show that golf is still a really f**king hard game, lol.