Flipping through the new Golf magazine, here's a quote from Gene Sarazen after winning the 1922 U.S. Open:

"All men are created equal, I'm just one stroke better than the rest."

Good one, Gene. I was reminded of the Squire a few pages later, too, when Kevin Cook argues that the size of the hole on the green should be enlarged.

This isn't a new idea. And some of the greats of the game have made the same argument. Sarazen, for instance. The Squire recommended enlarging the hole to eights inches in diameter. (For those not up on specifics, the golf hole is now - and has pretty much always been - 4.25 inches in diameter.)

Sarazen felt a larger hole would make the game more accessible to more people. It would be easier, in other words, and fewer folks who tried the game would give it up because of the degree of difficulty involved in hitting that little target. Make more putts, feel better about the game. We can all relate to that, right?

I think there are some interesting arguments to make - and author Cook makes a couple of them - in favor of enlarging the hole. But even if you grant that such arguments are correct (and I don't - just that they are interesting), they are still completely pointless, because there is no way it will ever happen. It is a metaphysical certainly that the size of the golf hole will not change, at least not in tournament golf. (I can see a few short courses, for example, experimenting with a larger hole in the pursuit of profits - turning their pitch-and-putt into something with elements of miniature golf in order to drum up family business.)

The reason is pretty simple: A change is hole size would serve as a complete disconnect between what came before and what comes after. The accomplishments of Hogan, Nicklaus, Jones, Nelson, Watson, Vardon, Snead, Palmer and, yes, Sarazen, would be lost. They would be obsolete. Irrelevant. That history would be gone. There'd be no context. No way to compare the accomplishments of golfers putting to a 4.25-inch hole with those putting to an 8-inch hole.

It's just too fundamental a change.

One suggestion Cook makes in his argument is that a larger golf hole would speed up play. And that's surely true. But it's a terrible - a truly awful - reason to consider enlarging the hole. I want to speed up play, too, but if you're willing to speed up play by enlarging the hole, then why not speed up play by, say, one of these methods instead:

• By declaring that 12 holes, rather than 18, constitutes a full round of golf.
• By declaring that every hole has a five-stroke maximum. Hit your fifth shot, pick up.
• By outfitting all players with high-explosive neck braces that self-destruct if the golfer falls more than 10 minutes behind the desired pace of play.

All of those would be very effective at speeding up play. But none of them are coming to tournament golf ... ever.

(As with the larger hole, however, I can see some golf courses of just 12 holes being built as a way to experiment with appealing to customers and as a way to keep down land and maintenance costs and water issues.)

So the 8-inch golf hole is an interesting idea, but nothing more than a thought experiment.