Bifurcation already exists! (after reading, please vote on the right! - all comments to USGA must be in by February 28, we will send ours, via PGA of America by the 25th)
Lets start by the fact that tour players play a different game than the rest of us. In every aspect. Period. Think of this: there are about 3,000 players in the world who actually make, or try to make a living at playing golf (men and women). Only the top 1,500 in men and the top 1,000 women are actually ranked. To make this a little more real to you: Tom Lehman, who won a major and the Tour Championship in the regular Tour, and won all honors in the senior tour last year, who is still a heck of a player, who would come to Elk City and score no worse that 64 on his first visit, is ranked 995 in the world at this writing! Do you know who Erik Flores is? I hadn't heard of him, until I saw his name in the world rankings as #952, 43 spots ahead of one of the best players I know of.
PGA Tour players, Nation Wide Tour players, Champions Tour, European Tour players, LPGA players, players of the various tours in the world, and even Symetra Tour players, play a different game than the rest of us. If you count all these players, there are about 3,000 tops. Most of them, you've never heard of, and many of whom will never make anyone's top 100 list, let alone top 10. If you consider that there are 63,000,000 golfers in the world, that is to say that only one in 21,000 golfers in the world actually makes a living at playing golf!
Yes, they play a different game!
So, to the USGA and Royal and Ancient Golf Club (the rules makers): get off your hands and do something to help promote the game that you want the rest of us in the golf business to promote!
Allow the weekend player who plays with his friends to anchor a long putter, allow the club champion that will never make it into the pro ranks to use a thinner face on his driver; allow the hacker to use balls that go farther and straighter, and limit some of these allowances to the Tour players and if you so choose so, the elite amateur players who qualify for the US Amateur or college golf. Think of this people of the blue coat society: of all the college players in the United States, even Division I schools, less than 1% ever make it to the Nation Wide Tour and less than one tenth of those, ever play one lone tournament in the PGA Tour!
In short, there is already a bifurcation by the way of talent and skills, by by the way of the way people approach the rules: most players do not really play by the Rules of Golf, beginning with those who play "strappers" (the term for gimmies in Oklahoma) and play the ball "up" either in the fairway or everywhere because they are incapable of hitting a good shot out of a bad lie.
In closing, if you, USGA & Royal and Ancient, change the rules, start with the golf ball -only for tour professionals- and thin face drivers, shafts, etc. On the other hand, if you allow the weekend golfers (that is 20,999 for every tour pro) to anchor their putter, to use the already "supercharged" balls, thin faces on his driver, his handicap won't actually change, but he will know that he is not cheating, he will enjoy the game and he, my friends in the high seats of the rulers of golf, will occasionally score his round of the year and be happy to invite other friends to take up the game!
The time is here.