By The Numbers - part the thirty eighth

Performance inflation is everywhere. Well... except when it's in your venue, and there it's because you and yours are now so much better with no help from Da Man. Two examples:

Yale's been dinked for giving out A's like Christmas candy

Nearly 80 percent of all grades given to undergraduates at Yale last academic year were A's or A minuses, part of a sharp increase that began during the coronavirus pandemic and appears to have stuck

Now, if you go and read the report, you'll find that Yale isn't an outlier, nor are the Ivys a group outlier. It's everywhere. It's been a bugbear for decades, going back to, at least, my undergraduate time many decades ago. And, so far as that all goes, now that college atheletes (in the Upper Level schools) can be paid directly (well, it's not likely to get stopped), how soon will they no longer even be required to take classes and get grades? Already, may haps?

Schools with "the most financial resources and the biggest brands" would form a new subdivision that could set its own rules for roster size, recruitment and transfers.

OTOH, it is today announced that the arbiters of Golf have decided that players, especially professionals, have been blasting through par like A bombs. And, of course, that has been going on for years. The R&A and USGA have been trying to keep the ball in play where the course designers intended. So, now (well, in a few years) golf balls are expressly limited in how far they can go under specified test conditions

The longest hitters are expected to see a reduction of as much as 13-15 yards in drive distance. Average professional tour and elite male players are expected to see a reduction of 9-11 yards, with a 5-7-yard reduction for an average LPGA or Ladies European Tour (LET) player.

And, of course, this isn't the first time the arbiters got outraged by a cool new ball.

One might argue that Ivy grade inflation and golfer driving distance inflation aren't the same. But the fact is, for golfers, the arbiters have allowed ever more clever ways for equipment manufacturers (clubs and balls) to make everyone special. It's not often they put down the hammer ('anchoring' a long putter being tossed is the only other edict I recall at the tip of my tongue), so golfers should be happy. Most other sports, and college atheletes in particular, are more actively governed.