This year, at my 49th PGA Show, Valerie and I found it as exciting as ever with all the new equipment which is getting better and better.
We stopped in with our friends at Wilson Golf and were delighted to see Eric Sillies, the winner of Driver vs Driver with his wonderful Triton design which is now being played on the PGA Tour by Kevin Streelman.
We also stopped into the Titleist booth and learned more about the ProV1 and ProV1x, as well as having a close look at some of the interesting new hybrid designs they have available.
There were some beautiful irons on display that are used on Tour. These designs have not changed in many years.
We were most interested in the equipment side of things, but it was good to see more and more technological applications related to measuring performance.
Mother Nature is taking control and is setting the standards on performance. However, she has left a little room for improvement.
Think about it; if we drop a ball onto a rigid block it will bounce back a certain height. We can improve the resilience of the ball and improve the bounce height a little. We can then place a trampoline on the block and tune it to increase the height of the bounce. However, this cannot continue to provide increased bounce back heights no matter how much good science or new materials we apply.
The ball will never bounce back higher than from where you dropped it. If it did we could harness the energy of the second and subsequent bounces and would have found a new source of energy – i.e. bouncing balls instead of fossil fuels.
Most of the significant increases in distance or improved performance will come from learning how to use the equipment more efficiently.
This does not mean that you should stop looking for a new more friendly piece of equipment but only don’t get too disappointed if it stops working the way it did while the price-tag still remained on the club.
Having said this, equipment today is as good as ever — in most cases — and making a new friends is often very rewarding.
Frank
franklygolf 
I see more of a difference between my set of MacGregor Colorkron irons of ~1960 and First Flight Standard blades from 1977 than those First Flight Blades and the current Titleist MB design. That Titleist club is slightly larger than the First Flight club, but that’s about it.