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I play golf. I write about golf. I genuinely love golf. Over the last 50 years, we have slowly broken the game of golf by allowing incremental technological adv

by scoofy 2y ago

I play golf. I write about golf. I genuinely love golf. Over the last 50 years, we have slowly broken the game of golf by allowing incremental technological advancements -- just like this -- that make it easier to do something that is hard, that is making it easier to hit the sweet spot. I am sending a grave warning to baseball fans here from the future that you will arrive at by following this road. Golf used to be a finesse game with moments of power. Now everyone is swinging out of their shoes on every shot, and the strategy of the game has reached Nash equilibrium where you basically want to hit the ball as hard as you can at every opportunity, despite any strategic element on the course. Professional baseball is always what I point to when I talk about what we've lost. You don't need the most optimized equipment to enjoy the game, in fact, ultimately, you don't even want it. Just use simply, standardized equipment, accept the limitations of that equipment, and enjoy a simple game, where strategy can be used to overcome the limitations of equipment. The best thing that the MLB ever did was reject aluminum bats.

13_9_7_7_5_18 2y ago
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DabbyDabberson 2y ago
baseball is an arms race though. In golf the ball is on a tee. In baseball, the pitchers get better every year, and throw faster every year. There's innovation happening on both ends.
- scoofy 2y ago
  If the pitchers are getting too good, just make it harder to pitch. Don't make it easier to hit better pitches. Golf is also an arms race too. Look at the lengths of golf courses over the last 50 years. It's comical. It used to be 6000 yards was a championship course... now it's over 8000. They used to put bunkers in front of greens to make them more challenging, but the equipment evolve to maximize height, and stop the ball on a dime. It's completely convoluted, because we just keep letting technology overcome every obstacle, but players don't like the obstacles, but you're not supposed to like the obstacles. So we let the tech overcome those obstacles, and then we build new, more difficult obstacles, and it's a never ending process of legalizing more tech, and then building more obstacles. And it continues until the game is unrecognizable from what it was a half century earlier.
  - szvsw 2y ago
    There are discussions about lowering the seams (harder to generate spin and makes the same spin rates less aerodynamically effective) as well as lowering the mound.
  - orlp 2y ago
    Making it harder to pitch leads to more batters getting hit and more injuries, depending on how it's done.
gerdesj 2y ago
Why not invent say "Field Golf" or "Lolz Golf" or whatever you fancy calling it? Set the rules and equipment to around your ideal time. Get some mates together to give it a go and refine it. I think the toughest part will be equipment - golf bats cost a fair bit to make but perhaps a price limit might help fix that. You could define club classes akin to how sailing has standard class boats. You could even require that participants make their own for an added twist. I'd keep the current standard balls for now. Why stop at the bats and balls? What about the format? You could do three holes with a very short shot clock and go straight to the 19th for a bladder wrecking session involving a golf themed drinking game. Instead of running in a Triathlon, do nine holes after the swim and before cycling to the finish. You could replace the cycle phase with knocking a polo ball from a pony along the course to the finish. The swim could be ... yes ... underwater croquet! Could be a lot of fun even if it never takes off - and that is what any past time ought to be.
- scoofy 2y ago
  There are plenty of associations who do this: https://worldhickoryopen.com/ https://worldhickoryopen.com/ I still play with my grandfather's persimmon clubs about 25% of the time. It's just a coordination problem... but once the dominant professional association the game changes forever, because the vast majority of people just want to emulate the pros, because they grew up dreaming of becoming pro. Golf is finally trying to do something about this with rolling back the golf ball so that it will have diminishing returns with more power, but the real damage was done in the early 80s by allowing hollow clubs to make the sweet spot bigger, which lead to it becoming absolutely huge in the 90s. Again, once you go down this road, you'll wake up in 20 years wondering what happened.
  - _carbyau_ 2y ago
    > but once the dominant professional association the game changes forever, because the vast majority of people just want to emulate the pros, because they grew up dreaming of becoming pro I don't want to squash anyone's dreams but I feel like "emulating the pros" undermines the "spirit of the game" a lot. Most sports are literally "bet I can" style games that have then been refined and refined. They don't intrinsically matter to life continuing. When you've experienced "sledging" in a low skill amateur series and the defence is "the pro's do it" then the fun of the game is gone...
szvsw 2y ago
There’s some consensus though that currently, pitching has evolved much faster than batting due to advances like Trackman and deeper understanding of the relationship between biomechanics, pitch tunneling, spinrate/flight path/movement, and so on. In conjunction with that has been a shift towards “TTO” (three true outcomes - HR/BB/K) on the offensive side, which is a statistically motivated perspective that batting for average is suboptimal. In short, you would rather have a lower BA and a higher home run rate even if it means a higher K rate, since home runs (and 2Bs) are so significantly more valuable than singles, and fly outs are also much more valuable than ground outs (or really, less bad) due to the opportunities for sac flies and the risk of double plays. TTO tho is also partly a response to the elevated pitching capabilities - velocity and spin. This is all just to say that batters are falling behind and there’s an argument that it hurts the on-field product from an entertainment perspective since balls in play are what we ultimately watch for - if torpedo bats make it more likely that players can bat for higher averages by barreling up the ball more consistently, it will be good for the game. Other alternative proposals include lowering the mound (famously done in the 60s), adjusting the ball (eg lower seams, which makes it harder for pitchers to generate spin and makes the same spin rates less effective), and so on. One good (bad?) thing is that to some extent pitchers are starting to reach a biomechanical wall, evidenced by the greatly increased rates of Tommy John surgery, though that is partly also an effect of better surgical techniques and recovery times. Point is - it’s complicated.
- scoofy 2y ago
  I don't disagree with any of this, I'm just saying that we know where this goes. It's just an arms races if you let it become one. If the pitching is getting too good, make it harder to pitch. >In short, you would rather have a lower BA and a higher home run rate even if it means a higher K rate, since home runs (and 2Bs) are so significantly more valuable than singles, and fly outs are also much more valuable than ground outs (or really, less bad) due to the opportunities for sac flies and the risk of double plays. Again, I see this as the tail wagging the dog. It's easy to point to home runs as entertaining, but they a ultimately rather boring. For die hard fans, you want more hits that end up in play, with more strategy, and more opportunity for mistakes and drama. You're not going to get that from home run derbies. Again, I know it's complicated, but ultimately, most sports organizations face an extremely complicated paradigm. It's fun to follow complicated sports where anything can happen, but it's hard to follow the same sports if you're not already into them. The way you solve this is to make the sports incredibly accessible so people visit games easily and cheaply as entertainment. The American sports system doesn't allow this because there is no relegation system, and so the fan bases are too large to allow the game to be accessible to most people. You end up making decisions that make television more watchable, and by making things "important" by "breaking records." This ultimately dilutes the game because it makes breaking records less relevant over time. We've got to the point in golf where someone setting an all time PGA scoring record is basically a yawn-fest, because everyone knows they're not playing the same game.
dcrazy 2y ago
The data show the only things that have had an impact on golf are the golf ball and speed training. And we’re rolling back the golf ball.
- scoofy 2y ago
  >The data show It's the clubs and everyone knows it but nobody wants to admit it because the club manufacturers are the money behind the game. You give a pro a persimmon driver and 70's blades and it doesn't matter if they're hitting a modern ball or the pre-pro v's from the 90s... you can't hit it out of your shoes because you won't be able to hit the sweet spot. Yes, the ball is a problem, but it's not the problem. The problem is exactly that we've allowed the sweet spot to become too big, which has led to the end of the finesse aspect of the game.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    I don't know as much about golf as you, but I have the urge to object to "finesse" being used to describe being able to hit a smaller sweetspot. Thinking of tennis, I would say finesse should be used to describe being able to vary your swing, putting "english" on the ball, soft tap dink shots, etc. pros are going to be better with any type of equipment, and they're going to be better at finesse, but doesn't a bigger sweet spot allow amateurs to play with more finesse than they could otherwise? it means more reliably being able to fade, draw, etc. rather than slice and hook, and it means more people can enjoy the game.
    - scoofy 2y ago
      By "finesse" I just mean that the sweet spot is to small to consistently hit with a full powered swing, so by doing that, you're taking a huge risk. That's the way it was in the 70's, but it's just not that way any longer. The idea is that there needs to be a tradeoff between power and accuracy. Here is Sam Snead in his prime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjEJgC5nYXw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjEJgC5nYXw Here is Bryson warming up today: https://www.reddit.com/r/golf/comments/1joeiap/vijay_just_looking_on_in_astonishment/ https://www.reddit.com/r/golf/comments/1joeiap/vijay_just_lo... It's like absolute night and day. It used to be a combination of balance and power. Now it's just brute force. The way Bryson is playing just isn't possible with a persimmon.
tiffanyh 2y ago
Everything you described about golf has already happened in MLB. Babe Ruth’s wood bat was 44 oz. Today’s wood bat in MLB are ~33 oz. The bat Babe Ruth used was so heavy he literally had to swing the bat different than how players can swing the bat today. There’s a short video on this here: https://youtu.be/P_uiHUJg7zs https://youtu.be/P_uiHUJg7zs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_bat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_bat —- Fishing has even undergone this technical change. FFS (Front Facing Sonar) has completely changed the sport of fishing tournaments, since now you can literally identify where to cast (direction and depth) to catch a fish … and you can even target the fish by their size. https://youtube.com/shorts/Dw-l_Smuqj8?si=QVvuAoNlfAb_-9F2 https://youtube.com/shorts/Dw-l_Smuqj8?si=QVvuAoNlfAb_-9F2
- russellbeattie 2y ago
  Quick tip in case you don't have a good sense of what an ounce feels like: It's exactly 5 quarters (the coin). So the difference between Babe's bat and today's is about the weight of 55 quarters (a roll and a half). Years of doing laundry at laundromats have given me a keen sense of how much handfuls of quarters weigh, so I find this actually pretty handy. Just in case: * A nickel is exactly 5 grams. * A penny (1982+) is 2.5 grams. * A dime is 0.08 ounces. * A quarter is 0.2 ounces. * 5 rolls of nickels = 1 kilogram * 2 rolls of quarters = 1 pound. Why did the U.S. Mint switch between even metric and even imperial units? Probably has to do with the changing metals in those coins. That said, the new small dollar coin is 8.1g / 0.286oz which makes no sense at all. It is, however, exactly 2mm thick.
  - deleted 2y ago
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- gamblor956 2y ago
  Baby Ruth was known for using a heavy bat. Most players used lighter bats.
poulsbohemian 2y ago
>that make it easier to do something that is hard, that is making it easier to hit the sweet spot. I agree completely with your synopsis, but I'm still a bit torn on whether it is a bad thing... I first golfed using my parent's 1970s era wood headed, aluminum shaft clubs that were extremely limited - it really was entirely about the golfer, not the equipment. Years later when I picked the game back up a bit - it's clear the equipment is doing a lot of work to make the user better. That said, at least at the amateur level - most of us still aren't great golfers, and given that many golfers are older and have physical limitations, it is a bad thing if better equipment improves their game and potentially gives them a few more years of enjoyment over the old stuff? I have a parallel view on skis - man those old straight long skis were hard on knees and so many skiers were lucky to still be charging after 40. Lotta knee surgeons made good money in the 80s! Then along came parabolic skis and made us all better and safer skiers - almost anyone can shred in today's skis because they are frankly easy to ride. In that case - the technology was a positive innovation. Your last paragraph nails it - the magic of baseball is its simplicity. Baseball games should take a long time and be an act of leisure. The idea of putting a baserunner on third to speed up a game is an abomination in the same way the addition of something other than a wood bat would detract from the skill of the player swinging it. So I'm with you - this could be some kind of equipment arms race that won't end well.
- jaredhallen 2y ago
  I agree about the skis. I think one important difference from the golf clubs is that they've enabled the really talented people to take things to a level previously unimaginable. Big mountain skiing is pretty bananas these days.
  - poulsbohemian 2y ago
    >they've enabled the really talented people to take things to a level previously unimaginable And I guess that's where I wonder if golf might be a sport where equipment should be restricted at the professional level, the same way that metal bats are not allowed in MLB. Here's another weird way to look at it - you can ingest whatever you want and go play on the company softball team, but an Olympic athlete takes an aspirin and they might get a lifetime ban. It doesn't seem unreasonable to deliberately restrict professional athletics in ways that might constrain it and yet allow us to gauge the athletes in their purest form. Some in the world have advocated for the idea that we should remove all constraints - take all the drugs, use all the physics and science to enhance performance, and let's really see what we can do. It's a fun idea, but like one of the parent posters alluded - we might not like where that all ends up.
dustbunny 2y ago
Can't they make the courses bigger/harder?
- scoofy 2y ago
  That’s exactly what has happened. The real issue is that it’s materially changed what the game is about.
smeej 2y ago
I think what both have in common is this: People who don't otherwise care about the sport will watch highlights of people smashing balls really far with sticks. And "people...will watch" generates revenue. People who are passionate about either sport will find them less and less interesting, but 1) most of you will keep watching anyway, and 2) the sports can afford to lose you for the parts you won't watch if it increases the total amount of "seconds people will watch" enough by drawing in enough new eyeballs.
dillydogg 2y ago
Hasn't baseball already turned into this with the rise of three true outcomes?
zahlman 2y ago
Speaking as a curling fan: the game has been greatly enhanced by the analogous technological improvements. Shots that used to be fever dreams are now routine at top levels of play, and the sport is better off for it. The change is even more dramatic worldwide than in Canada; teams from countries like Japan and Korea (perhaps the most impressive in this regard) have had to keep up with these advances while also generally becoming competitive on the world stage - in a sport where previously (say, a few decades ago) Canada, Scotland (the birthplace of the game) and maybe a couple of European countries were the only ones worth paying attention to.
- ryathal 2y ago
  I'm not sure I can agree with that. I think the top level of curling has reached a point that's boring to watch as too many shots are perfect. It leads to boring games of waiting for a missed shot. It's far more entertaining to watch the chaos of a mixed doubles match. That said I wish I could see more than just the Olympics.
Glyptodon 2y ago
I think there's very much something to be said for standardizing equipment in sports that use it, at least to a point.
- tiffanyh 2y ago
  Indy car vs F1. Indy car is every team essentially driving the same car. (The standardization you’re talking about) F1 however, establishes guardrails for what teams can & cannot do. And then lets the teams innovate within those definitions.
jparishy 2y ago
Generally I agree with you, but I think MLB has actually been pretty responsive to the modern-era dynamic nature of the game. Love them or hate them, they're trying rule changes in the minor leagues and bringing up the ones that work. To me in particular I found the shift frustrating as a fan, and was glad to see a game rule to address it. I also like that they are willing to admit they're wrong, like with the juiced balls. MLB has lots of issues but I think they're doing a pretty good job keeping the sport alive given all the circumstances.
eru 2y ago
Golf is essentially a single player game that you play against yourself. If you don't like a particular thing in golf, then don't use that particular thing. And if it destroys the entertainment value, then don't watch that. This is very similar to how speedruns for video games have multiple categories with different rulesets, and you pick whichever one you like best.
- scoofy 2y ago
  >Golf is essentially a single player game that you play against yourself. With modern golf, yes. This is only because of the advent of television. Match-play used to dominate the game, and is still advocated my many (myself included), which allows direct competition, and introduces risk-reward strategy depending on how the other player plays.
  - eru 2y ago
    Well, even match-play is about as interactive as running a race. Very different from the direct interaction you have in a game like Baseball.
    - scoofy 2y ago
      It's really not. You can absolutely change your strategy based on what the other player is doing.
      - eru 2y ago
        Runners tell you the same thing. Or bicyclists.
        sk5t 2y ago
        Are those runners and bicyclists not confused? Taking a risk in golf could save a stroke or cost several; are runners making mistakes like "run harder for a bit but fall into a pond" or "run harder for a bit but exceed limits and take an injury"?
singlepaynews 2y ago
Don’t you already want to hit the baseball as hard as you can at every opportunity? Just with the caveat that you need to develop skill with using a one-size-fits-all bat? Is bunting and going for balls that big of a deal currently, that a player who could rock one into left field would decide not to? Surely any strategy around loading up bases to stack the deck for your strongest hitter remains, it seems like this levels between hitters more than from hitter to pitcher?
- rco8786 2y ago
  > Don’t you already want to hit the baseball as hard as you can at every opportunity? Not at all! Always swinging for home runs is a recipe for a lot of strike outs. Singles and doubles win games. Though, maybe not for long.
whall6 2y ago
If we’re drawing parallels to other sports, I greatly prefer formula 1 to NASCAR…
- xeromal 2y ago
  I prefer local dirt track racing to either one of those. It's like watching an olympics with local atheletes. A ton more variance instead of micro optimizations.
no_wizard 2y ago
I think everything you noted as a downside is why, in part, things like Pickleball and Disc Golf took off in the last 5 years. They’re similar to things we know, but different enough that they haven’t been optimized out of reach by normals, or at least perceived as such, and both have a relatively cheap barrier of entry to get started. I think we may find 20 years from now the dominate sports have changed up a bit. I have heard that the NFL and MLB for instance are worried about the incoming decline of their sports because they aren’t nearly as popular with people under 35 compared to basketball and other up snd coming sports
- presidentender 2y ago
  Are there similar optimizations available for basketball? Shoes can only do so much.
  - no_wizard 2y ago
    Not really, due to how the game is designed. I don’t know all the ins and outs of the sport but the way is played leaves little room comparatively for artificial optimization
  - capital_guy 2y ago
    For professional basketball, the statistical advantage of 3-point has completely warped the game. There are a lot of articles online about it
    - TheCleric 2y ago
      Yeah there’s a pretty clear distinction between the NBA (and even college somewhat) from before Steph Curry and after. It’s been as revolutionary as the addition of the line in the first place and the shot clock.
    - thefringthing 2y ago
      My understanding is that the whole history of basketball is explained by the fact that they won't make the court bigger and the nets higher to account for the fact that the players are seven feet tall now.
its_down_again 2y ago
People have had similar sentiments in tennis about how racket and ball technology has changed the game over the years. Moving away from wooden rackets led to a massive increase in power and a larger sweet spot, which transformed the game from finesse to powerful serve-and-volley play. John McEnroe began with wooden racquets, while Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi adjusted to carbon fiber frames. Then poly strings took things even further, players generated extreme topspin to deliver aggressive swings with much more consistency, pushing the game back towards the high-powered baseline style. For me, Roger Federer's style represents tennis at its most beautiful. His all-court game feels effortless and graceful, almost like a dance. But from a court-level view, it's more of a high-speed chess match built on calculated aggression, constantly pressuring opponents and waiting for the slightest opening to strike a point-winning shot. That level of sophistication and precision wouldn’t be possible without modern racket technology. I still feel emotionally tied to classic matches from my childhood, especially Federer versus Nadal. But there's no objective reason, because tennis keeps getting better. People worried finesse was disappearing, but players like Alcaraz have brought back drop shots and clever cat-and-mouse tactics against deep-baseline defenders like Zverev and Medvedev. It’s a technique that was once considered too risky to rely on consistently. In golf, tennis, baseball, basketball, running, & any other sport will keep evolving as technology & athleticism improves. Clinging to older styles feels more like holding onto the past than genuinely appreciating progress. If you can’t enjoy Curry hitting daggers in the Olympic finals or Kiplimo breaking 57 minutes in a half marathon, maybe the problem isn't with the sport itself. Maybe it’s the comfort of past memories holding you back from appreciating what’s happening now.
- xhevahir 2y ago
  This argument about progress falls apart as soon as you consider previous eras in sport that were found wanting. Was the bruising play of the 2004 NBA superior to previous kinds of basketball? Most people would disagree. Were the stickhandling of Martin Brodeur and the Left Wing Lock the culmination of decades of hockey "progress?" Not even a Devils or Red Wings fan would say that. Should everyone have celebrated when it was discovered in the 1990 World Cup that the most efficient strategy was to deliver the ball into the hands of the goalkeeper over and over? No, because it was incredibly boring.
cbogie 2y ago
amen. i hit golf balls with old hand me downs from my great uncle. the woods - the heads are wooden! they feel great to connect and they can crush distance. but the feel is so full and warm. i guess like warm vinyl records. even better- i get to suck on so many shots. but sometimes - glory and feels. another thing i like to celebrate when doing new sports ks starting with the crappiest gear available. it works and i learn. eventually when i upgrade, i can appreciate the new features and tech. or it’s bogus and doesn’t matter. probably inappropriate but i find this phrase encouraging - it’s not the arrow, it’s the indian.
- NaOH 2y ago
  There was another article on these baseball bats where the opposing manager—the one whose team gave up the home runs—said, "It ain't the wand; it's the magician."
jajko 2y ago
I would expand this to any professional sport. I know its unpopular opinion basically anywhere, but I detest most professional sports that have enough money in them for enough time. It literally and visibly corrupts game. Football (and hockey, basketball etc.) became monopoly game long time ago. Cycling became much worse re doping than bodybuilding ffs, literally everybody is dosing and the game is only about better evasion of newer compounds from ever-evolving tests. And so on. There is very little former spirit of why games like olympics started. Just read about first few olympics how they were done. Very respectable achievements even if not the best times. But times should be largely irrelevant, it should be way more about team efforts, camaraderie, and internal motivation. Now its just chasing sponsors, promotions, routing to instagram accounts in bikinis for female athletes. I get it, it generates tons of cash, but I do sports and like them for sports, nothing else. In contrary I still love sports cca on fringe, where sportsmen do it more for the love of it than anything more pragmatical. Thats real passion, not manufactured ones with big redbull or adidas logos all over the place and contracts running in millions or more. When I extend it to personal level - I like running just by myself, no watch to track me. I know how much effort I do, every sporty person does very well. I don't care about my times, laps, energy spent, progression, getting better every week and so on. That's not a good reason to do it and sustain long term (apart from unhealthily competitive persons but thats another story).
cbames89 2y ago
Slow game warns other slow game, hey you might get fast.
hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
Opposite advice. Take the best equipment and enjoy the game the most, focus on strategy with the increased options and capabilities. So much time and frustration wasted with inferior equipment that sucks the life out, or requires a path of practice and mastery most people don't want for hobbies or things they enjoy doing. If YOU want to use the least helpful tools and make up the difference with knowledge, skill and practice that's OK. To each their own and if you enjoy that then 100%. Just remember some people enjoy things in a lot of different ways.
- scoofy 2y ago
  If you really believe this, just go full bore and get a swingless golf club: https://youtu.be/MGpg8rclilc?si=S-vEbbtk3RWMAkg6 https://youtu.be/MGpg8rclilc?si=S-vEbbtk3RWMAkg6
  - hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
    Man I really needed that last month playing with some friends. Would have been hilarious and more fun!. Bit of a reducto-ad-absurdum though isn't it. But in all seriousness there is a difference between something that is forgiving and something that requires a high degree of practice to master. If its a hobby, get what is forgiving. If you can't see the wisdom in that advice, well you can lead a horse to water eh.
sigzero 2y ago
I totally agree.
TheCondor 2y ago
This simply impacts the viewers of the sport, right? When you play, you can play with whatever equipment you want, with a like minded group of players. Keep the game as “pure” as you want or use “The Sure Thing” clubs from top golf. The changes only matter on TV and then specifically if you compare that product to years or decades back. MLB is an incredibly poor example of maintaining purity. the most sacred records in the game were totally shattered, repeatedly, with modern technology and pharmaceuticals all in order to increase TV viewership and no penalties at all. To pretend there is some preservation of purity they are keeping these guys out of the Hall of Fame for a while, but the teams didn’t have fines or lose wins or draft picks or even have any of these guys suspended when everyone knew they were cheating. It’s this intersection between taking part and entertainment where this odd gatekeeping happens. I hated hydraulic disc brakes and EPS on race bikes, until I tried it, the stuff is great but for myself I still ride bikes without electronics and rim brakes sometimes. I pinch the barbs on my hooks when I fly fish, I know others don’t and probably catch fish that I don’t, but for me I pinch the barbs. Oddly, I find it acceptable to use completely modern lines and rods and can throw a fly way better than any angler could in years ago. I’ve been able to find more satisfaction competing against myself with my own criteria than worrying about the purity on tv.
- scoofy 2y ago
  No, for golf at least, it completely changes the way the game is played for even amateurs.
  - TheCondor 2y ago
    Yeah, but you still can play with the harder to use clubs or older balls or whatever. Some amateur coming to the course and driving 300yds too easily doesn't have to change the way you play. I guess if you want to compete with them then there is that.
psunavy03 2y ago
Yeah, no. All this does is make golf more accessible and engaging to the average weekend hacker with like a 19+ handicap. Not everyone has the natural talent to play scratch golf, and of those that don't, not everyone is committed enough to spend day after day at the driving range. So all the tech improvements are doing is letting the average duffer keep it closer to the fairway and maybe have some fun, instead of getting so frustrated they quit.
deleted 2y ago
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by scoofy 2y ago

13_9_7_7_5_18 2y ago

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DabbyDabberson 2y ago

baseball is an arms race though. In golf the ball is on a tee. In baseball, the pitchers get better every year, and throw faster every year. There's innovation happening on both ends.

scoofy 2y ago
If the pitchers are getting too good, just make it harder to pitch. Don't make it easier to hit better pitches. Golf is also an arms race too. Look at the lengths of golf courses over the last 50 years. It's comical. It used to be 6000 yards was a championship course... now it's over 8000. They used to put bunkers in front of greens to make them more challenging, but the equipment evolve to maximize height, and stop the ball on a dime. It's completely convoluted, because we just keep letting technology overcome every obstacle, but players don't like the obstacles, but you're not supposed to like the obstacles. So we let the tech overcome those obstacles, and then we build new, more difficult obstacles, and it's a never ending process of legalizing more tech, and then building more obstacles. And it continues until the game is unrecognizable from what it was a half century earlier.
- szvsw 2y ago
  There are discussions about lowering the seams (harder to generate spin and makes the same spin rates less aerodynamically effective) as well as lowering the mound.
- orlp 2y ago
  Making it harder to pitch leads to more batters getting hit and more injuries, depending on how it's done.

gerdesj 2y ago

Why not invent say "Field Golf" or "Lolz Golf" or whatever you fancy calling it? Set the rules and equipment to around your ideal time. Get some mates together to give it a go and refine it. I think the toughest part will be equipment - golf bats cost a fair bit to make but perhaps a price limit might help fix that. You could define club classes akin to how sailing has standard class boats. You could even require that participants make their own for an added twist. I'd keep the current standard balls for now. Why stop at the bats and balls? What about the format? You could do three holes with a very short shot clock and go straight to the 19th for a bladder wrecking session involving a golf themed drinking game. Instead of running in a Triathlon, do nine holes after the swim and before cycling to the finish. You could replace the cycle phase with knocking a polo ball from a pony along the course to the finish. The swim could be ... yes ... underwater croquet! Could be a lot of fun even if it never takes off - and that is what any past time ought to be.

scoofy 2y ago
There are plenty of associations who do this: https://worldhickoryopen.com/ https://worldhickoryopen.com/ I still play with my grandfather's persimmon clubs about 25% of the time. It's just a coordination problem... but once the dominant professional association the game changes forever, because the vast majority of people just want to emulate the pros, because they grew up dreaming of becoming pro. Golf is finally trying to do something about this with rolling back the golf ball so that it will have diminishing returns with more power, but the real damage was done in the early 80s by allowing hollow clubs to make the sweet spot bigger, which lead to it becoming absolutely huge in the 90s. Again, once you go down this road, you'll wake up in 20 years wondering what happened.
- _carbyau_ 2y ago
  > but once the dominant professional association the game changes forever, because the vast majority of people just want to emulate the pros, because they grew up dreaming of becoming pro I don't want to squash anyone's dreams but I feel like "emulating the pros" undermines the "spirit of the game" a lot. Most sports are literally "bet I can" style games that have then been refined and refined. They don't intrinsically matter to life continuing. When you've experienced "sledging" in a low skill amateur series and the defence is "the pro's do it" then the fun of the game is gone...

szvsw 2y ago

There’s some consensus though that currently, pitching has evolved much faster than batting due to advances like Trackman and deeper understanding of the relationship between biomechanics, pitch tunneling, spinrate/flight path/movement, and so on. In conjunction with that has been a shift towards “TTO” (three true outcomes - HR/BB/K) on the offensive side, which is a statistically motivated perspective that batting for average is suboptimal. In short, you would rather have a lower BA and a higher home run rate even if it means a higher K rate, since home runs (and 2Bs) are so significantly more valuable than singles, and fly outs are also much more valuable than ground outs (or really, less bad) due to the opportunities for sac flies and the risk of double plays. TTO tho is also partly a response to the elevated pitching capabilities - velocity and spin. This is all just to say that batters are falling behind and there’s an argument that it hurts the on-field product from an entertainment perspective since balls in play are what we ultimately watch for - if torpedo bats make it more likely that players can bat for higher averages by barreling up the ball more consistently, it will be good for the game. Other alternative proposals include lowering the mound (famously done in the 60s), adjusting the ball (eg lower seams, which makes it harder for pitchers to generate spin and makes the same spin rates less effective), and so on. One good (bad?) thing is that to some extent pitchers are starting to reach a biomechanical wall, evidenced by the greatly increased rates of Tommy John surgery, though that is partly also an effect of better surgical techniques and recovery times. Point is - it’s complicated.

scoofy 2y ago
I don't disagree with any of this, I'm just saying that we know where this goes. It's just an arms races if you let it become one. If the pitching is getting too good, make it harder to pitch. >In short, you would rather have a lower BA and a higher home run rate even if it means a higher K rate, since home runs (and 2Bs) are so significantly more valuable than singles, and fly outs are also much more valuable than ground outs (or really, less bad) due to the opportunities for sac flies and the risk of double plays. Again, I see this as the tail wagging the dog. It's easy to point to home runs as entertaining, but they a ultimately rather boring. For die hard fans, you want more hits that end up in play, with more strategy, and more opportunity for mistakes and drama. You're not going to get that from home run derbies. Again, I know it's complicated, but ultimately, most sports organizations face an extremely complicated paradigm. It's fun to follow complicated sports where anything can happen, but it's hard to follow the same sports if you're not already into them. The way you solve this is to make the sports incredibly accessible so people visit games easily and cheaply as entertainment. The American sports system doesn't allow this because there is no relegation system, and so the fan bases are too large to allow the game to be accessible to most people. You end up making decisions that make television more watchable, and by making things "important" by "breaking records." This ultimately dilutes the game because it makes breaking records less relevant over time. We've got to the point in golf where someone setting an all time PGA scoring record is basically a yawn-fest, because everyone knows they're not playing the same game.

dcrazy 2y ago

The data show the only things that have had an impact on golf are the golf ball and speed training. And we’re rolling back the golf ball.

scoofy 2y ago
>The data show It's the clubs and everyone knows it but nobody wants to admit it because the club manufacturers are the money behind the game. You give a pro a persimmon driver and 70's blades and it doesn't matter if they're hitting a modern ball or the pre-pro v's from the 90s... you can't hit it out of your shoes because you won't be able to hit the sweet spot. Yes, the ball is a problem, but it's not the problem. The problem is exactly that we've allowed the sweet spot to become too big, which has led to the end of the finesse aspect of the game.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  I don't know as much about golf as you, but I have the urge to object to "finesse" being used to describe being able to hit a smaller sweetspot. Thinking of tennis, I would say finesse should be used to describe being able to vary your swing, putting "english" on the ball, soft tap dink shots, etc. pros are going to be better with any type of equipment, and they're going to be better at finesse, but doesn't a bigger sweet spot allow amateurs to play with more finesse than they could otherwise? it means more reliably being able to fade, draw, etc. rather than slice and hook, and it means more people can enjoy the game.
  - scoofy 2y ago
    By "finesse" I just mean that the sweet spot is to small to consistently hit with a full powered swing, so by doing that, you're taking a huge risk. That's the way it was in the 70's, but it's just not that way any longer. The idea is that there needs to be a tradeoff between power and accuracy. Here is Sam Snead in his prime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjEJgC5nYXw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjEJgC5nYXw Here is Bryson warming up today: https://www.reddit.com/r/golf/comments/1joeiap/vijay_just_looking_on_in_astonishment/ https://www.reddit.com/r/golf/comments/1joeiap/vijay_just_lo... It's like absolute night and day. It used to be a combination of balance and power. Now it's just brute force. The way Bryson is playing just isn't possible with a persimmon.

tiffanyh 2y ago

Everything you described about golf has already happened in MLB. Babe Ruth’s wood bat was 44 oz. Today’s wood bat in MLB are ~33 oz. The bat Babe Ruth used was so heavy he literally had to swing the bat different than how players can swing the bat today. There’s a short video on this here: https://youtu.be/P_uiHUJg7zs https://youtu.be/P_uiHUJg7zs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_bat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_bat —- Fishing has even undergone this technical change. FFS (Front Facing Sonar) has completely changed the sport of fishing tournaments, since now you can literally identify where to cast (direction and depth) to catch a fish … and you can even target the fish by their size. https://youtube.com/shorts/Dw-l_Smuqj8?si=QVvuAoNlfAb_-9F2 https://youtube.com/shorts/Dw-l_Smuqj8?si=QVvuAoNlfAb_-9F2

russellbeattie 2y ago
Quick tip in case you don't have a good sense of what an ounce feels like: It's exactly 5 quarters (the coin). So the difference between Babe's bat and today's is about the weight of 55 quarters (a roll and a half). Years of doing laundry at laundromats have given me a keen sense of how much handfuls of quarters weigh, so I find this actually pretty handy. Just in case: * A nickel is exactly 5 grams. * A penny (1982+) is 2.5 grams. * A dime is 0.08 ounces. * A quarter is 0.2 ounces. * 5 rolls of nickels = 1 kilogram * 2 rolls of quarters = 1 pound. Why did the U.S. Mint switch between even metric and even imperial units? Probably has to do with the changing metals in those coins. That said, the new small dollar coin is 8.1g / 0.286oz which makes no sense at all. It is, however, exactly 2mm thick.
- deleted 2y ago
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gamblor956 2y ago
Baby Ruth was known for using a heavy bat. Most players used lighter bats.

poulsbohemian 2y ago

>that make it easier to do something that is hard, that is making it easier to hit the sweet spot. I agree completely with your synopsis, but I'm still a bit torn on whether it is a bad thing... I first golfed using my parent's 1970s era wood headed, aluminum shaft clubs that were extremely limited - it really was entirely about the golfer, not the equipment. Years later when I picked the game back up a bit - it's clear the equipment is doing a lot of work to make the user better. That said, at least at the amateur level - most of us still aren't great golfers, and given that many golfers are older and have physical limitations, it is a bad thing if better equipment improves their game and potentially gives them a few more years of enjoyment over the old stuff? I have a parallel view on skis - man those old straight long skis were hard on knees and so many skiers were lucky to still be charging after 40. Lotta knee surgeons made good money in the 80s! Then along came parabolic skis and made us all better and safer skiers - almost anyone can shred in today's skis because they are frankly easy to ride. In that case - the technology was a positive innovation. Your last paragraph nails it - the magic of baseball is its simplicity. Baseball games should take a long time and be an act of leisure. The idea of putting a baserunner on third to speed up a game is an abomination in the same way the addition of something other than a wood bat would detract from the skill of the player swinging it. So I'm with you - this could be some kind of equipment arms race that won't end well.

jaredhallen 2y ago
I agree about the skis. I think one important difference from the golf clubs is that they've enabled the really talented people to take things to a level previously unimaginable. Big mountain skiing is pretty bananas these days.
- poulsbohemian 2y ago
  >they've enabled the really talented people to take things to a level previously unimaginable And I guess that's where I wonder if golf might be a sport where equipment should be restricted at the professional level, the same way that metal bats are not allowed in MLB. Here's another weird way to look at it - you can ingest whatever you want and go play on the company softball team, but an Olympic athlete takes an aspirin and they might get a lifetime ban. It doesn't seem unreasonable to deliberately restrict professional athletics in ways that might constrain it and yet allow us to gauge the athletes in their purest form. Some in the world have advocated for the idea that we should remove all constraints - take all the drugs, use all the physics and science to enhance performance, and let's really see what we can do. It's a fun idea, but like one of the parent posters alluded - we might not like where that all ends up.

dustbunny 2y ago

Can't they make the courses bigger/harder?

scoofy 2y ago
That’s exactly what has happened. The real issue is that it’s materially changed what the game is about.

smeej 2y ago

I think what both have in common is this: People who don't otherwise care about the sport will watch highlights of people smashing balls really far with sticks. And "people...will watch" generates revenue. People who are passionate about either sport will find them less and less interesting, but 1) most of you will keep watching anyway, and 2) the sports can afford to lose you for the parts you won't watch if it increases the total amount of "seconds people will watch" enough by drawing in enough new eyeballs.

dillydogg 2y ago

Hasn't baseball already turned into this with the rise of three true outcomes?

zahlman 2y ago

Speaking as a curling fan: the game has been greatly enhanced by the analogous technological improvements. Shots that used to be fever dreams are now routine at top levels of play, and the sport is better off for it. The change is even more dramatic worldwide than in Canada; teams from countries like Japan and Korea (perhaps the most impressive in this regard) have had to keep up with these advances while also generally becoming competitive on the world stage - in a sport where previously (say, a few decades ago) Canada, Scotland (the birthplace of the game) and maybe a couple of European countries were the only ones worth paying attention to.

ryathal 2y ago
I'm not sure I can agree with that. I think the top level of curling has reached a point that's boring to watch as too many shots are perfect. It leads to boring games of waiting for a missed shot. It's far more entertaining to watch the chaos of a mixed doubles match. That said I wish I could see more than just the Olympics.

Glyptodon 2y ago

I think there's very much something to be said for standardizing equipment in sports that use it, at least to a point.

tiffanyh 2y ago
Indy car vs F1. Indy car is every team essentially driving the same car. (The standardization you’re talking about) F1 however, establishes guardrails for what teams can & cannot do. And then lets the teams innovate within those definitions.

jparishy 2y ago

Generally I agree with you, but I think MLB has actually been pretty responsive to the modern-era dynamic nature of the game. Love them or hate them, they're trying rule changes in the minor leagues and bringing up the ones that work. To me in particular I found the shift frustrating as a fan, and was glad to see a game rule to address it. I also like that they are willing to admit they're wrong, like with the juiced balls. MLB has lots of issues but I think they're doing a pretty good job keeping the sport alive given all the circumstances.

eru 2y ago

Golf is essentially a single player game that you play against yourself. If you don't like a particular thing in golf, then don't use that particular thing. And if it destroys the entertainment value, then don't watch that. This is very similar to how speedruns for video games have multiple categories with different rulesets, and you pick whichever one you like best.

scoofy 2y ago
>Golf is essentially a single player game that you play against yourself. With modern golf, yes. This is only because of the advent of television. Match-play used to dominate the game, and is still advocated my many (myself included), which allows direct competition, and introduces risk-reward strategy depending on how the other player plays.
- eru 2y ago
  Well, even match-play is about as interactive as running a race. Very different from the direct interaction you have in a game like Baseball.
  - scoofy 2y ago
    It's really not. You can absolutely change your strategy based on what the other player is doing.
    - eru 2y ago
      Runners tell you the same thing. Or bicyclists.
      - sk5t 2y ago
        Are those runners and bicyclists not confused? Taking a risk in golf could save a stroke or cost several; are runners making mistakes like "run harder for a bit but fall into a pond" or "run harder for a bit but exceed limits and take an injury"?

singlepaynews 2y ago

Don’t you already want to hit the baseball as hard as you can at every opportunity? Just with the caveat that you need to develop skill with using a one-size-fits-all bat? Is bunting and going for balls that big of a deal currently, that a player who could rock one into left field would decide not to? Surely any strategy around loading up bases to stack the deck for your strongest hitter remains, it seems like this levels between hitters more than from hitter to pitcher?

rco8786 2y ago
> Don’t you already want to hit the baseball as hard as you can at every opportunity? Not at all! Always swinging for home runs is a recipe for a lot of strike outs. Singles and doubles win games. Though, maybe not for long.

whall6 2y ago

If we’re drawing parallels to other sports, I greatly prefer formula 1 to NASCAR…

xeromal 2y ago
I prefer local dirt track racing to either one of those. It's like watching an olympics with local atheletes. A ton more variance instead of micro optimizations.

no_wizard 2y ago

I think everything you noted as a downside is why, in part, things like Pickleball and Disc Golf took off in the last 5 years. They’re similar to things we know, but different enough that they haven’t been optimized out of reach by normals, or at least perceived as such, and both have a relatively cheap barrier of entry to get started. I think we may find 20 years from now the dominate sports have changed up a bit. I have heard that the NFL and MLB for instance are worried about the incoming decline of their sports because they aren’t nearly as popular with people under 35 compared to basketball and other up snd coming sports

presidentender 2y ago
Are there similar optimizations available for basketball? Shoes can only do so much.
- no_wizard 2y ago
  Not really, due to how the game is designed. I don’t know all the ins and outs of the sport but the way is played leaves little room comparatively for artificial optimization
- capital_guy 2y ago
  For professional basketball, the statistical advantage of 3-point has completely warped the game. There are a lot of articles online about it
  - TheCleric 2y ago
    Yeah there’s a pretty clear distinction between the NBA (and even college somewhat) from before Steph Curry and after. It’s been as revolutionary as the addition of the line in the first place and the shot clock.
  - thefringthing 2y ago
    My understanding is that the whole history of basketball is explained by the fact that they won't make the court bigger and the nets higher to account for the fact that the players are seven feet tall now.

its_down_again 2y ago

People have had similar sentiments in tennis about how racket and ball technology has changed the game over the years. Moving away from wooden rackets led to a massive increase in power and a larger sweet spot, which transformed the game from finesse to powerful serve-and-volley play. John McEnroe began with wooden racquets, while Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi adjusted to carbon fiber frames. Then poly strings took things even further, players generated extreme topspin to deliver aggressive swings with much more consistency, pushing the game back towards the high-powered baseline style. For me, Roger Federer's style represents tennis at its most beautiful. His all-court game feels effortless and graceful, almost like a dance. But from a court-level view, it's more of a high-speed chess match built on calculated aggression, constantly pressuring opponents and waiting for the slightest opening to strike a point-winning shot. That level of sophistication and precision wouldn’t be possible without modern racket technology. I still feel emotionally tied to classic matches from my childhood, especially Federer versus Nadal. But there's no objective reason, because tennis keeps getting better. People worried finesse was disappearing, but players like Alcaraz have brought back drop shots and clever cat-and-mouse tactics against deep-baseline defenders like Zverev and Medvedev. It’s a technique that was once considered too risky to rely on consistently. In golf, tennis, baseball, basketball, running, & any other sport will keep evolving as technology & athleticism improves. Clinging to older styles feels more like holding onto the past than genuinely appreciating progress. If you can’t enjoy Curry hitting daggers in the Olympic finals or Kiplimo breaking 57 minutes in a half marathon, maybe the problem isn't with the sport itself. Maybe it’s the comfort of past memories holding you back from appreciating what’s happening now.

xhevahir 2y ago
This argument about progress falls apart as soon as you consider previous eras in sport that were found wanting. Was the bruising play of the 2004 NBA superior to previous kinds of basketball? Most people would disagree. Were the stickhandling of Martin Brodeur and the Left Wing Lock the culmination of decades of hockey "progress?" Not even a Devils or Red Wings fan would say that. Should everyone have celebrated when it was discovered in the 1990 World Cup that the most efficient strategy was to deliver the ball into the hands of the goalkeeper over and over? No, because it was incredibly boring.

cbogie 2y ago

amen. i hit golf balls with old hand me downs from my great uncle. the woods - the heads are wooden! they feel great to connect and they can crush distance. but the feel is so full and warm. i guess like warm vinyl records. even better- i get to suck on so many shots. but sometimes - glory and feels. another thing i like to celebrate when doing new sports ks starting with the crappiest gear available. it works and i learn. eventually when i upgrade, i can appreciate the new features and tech. or it’s bogus and doesn’t matter. probably inappropriate but i find this phrase encouraging - it’s not the arrow, it’s the indian.

NaOH 2y ago
There was another article on these baseball bats where the opposing manager—the one whose team gave up the home runs—said, "It ain't the wand; it's the magician."

jajko 2y ago

I would expand this to any professional sport. I know its unpopular opinion basically anywhere, but I detest most professional sports that have enough money in them for enough time. It literally and visibly corrupts game. Football (and hockey, basketball etc.) became monopoly game long time ago. Cycling became much worse re doping than bodybuilding ffs, literally everybody is dosing and the game is only about better evasion of newer compounds from ever-evolving tests. And so on. There is very little former spirit of why games like olympics started. Just read about first few olympics how they were done. Very respectable achievements even if not the best times. But times should be largely irrelevant, it should be way more about team efforts, camaraderie, and internal motivation. Now its just chasing sponsors, promotions, routing to instagram accounts in bikinis for female athletes. I get it, it generates tons of cash, but I do sports and like them for sports, nothing else. In contrary I still love sports cca on fringe, where sportsmen do it more for the love of it than anything more pragmatical. Thats real passion, not manufactured ones with big redbull or adidas logos all over the place and contracts running in millions or more. When I extend it to personal level - I like running just by myself, no watch to track me. I know how much effort I do, every sporty person does very well. I don't care about my times, laps, energy spent, progression, getting better every week and so on. That's not a good reason to do it and sustain long term (apart from unhealthily competitive persons but thats another story).

cbames89 2y ago

Slow game warns other slow game, hey you might get fast.

hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago

Opposite advice. Take the best equipment and enjoy the game the most, focus on strategy with the increased options and capabilities. So much time and frustration wasted with inferior equipment that sucks the life out, or requires a path of practice and mastery most people don't want for hobbies or things they enjoy doing. If YOU want to use the least helpful tools and make up the difference with knowledge, skill and practice that's OK. To each their own and if you enjoy that then 100%. Just remember some people enjoy things in a lot of different ways.

scoofy 2y ago
If you really believe this, just go full bore and get a swingless golf club: https://youtu.be/MGpg8rclilc?si=S-vEbbtk3RWMAkg6 https://youtu.be/MGpg8rclilc?si=S-vEbbtk3RWMAkg6
- hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
  Man I really needed that last month playing with some friends. Would have been hilarious and more fun!. Bit of a reducto-ad-absurdum though isn't it. But in all seriousness there is a difference between something that is forgiving and something that requires a high degree of practice to master. If its a hobby, get what is forgiving. If you can't see the wisdom in that advice, well you can lead a horse to water eh.

sigzero 2y ago

I totally agree.

TheCondor 2y ago

This simply impacts the viewers of the sport, right? When you play, you can play with whatever equipment you want, with a like minded group of players. Keep the game as “pure” as you want or use “The Sure Thing” clubs from top golf. The changes only matter on TV and then specifically if you compare that product to years or decades back. MLB is an incredibly poor example of maintaining purity. the most sacred records in the game were totally shattered, repeatedly, with modern technology and pharmaceuticals all in order to increase TV viewership and no penalties at all. To pretend there is some preservation of purity they are keeping these guys out of the Hall of Fame for a while, but the teams didn’t have fines or lose wins or draft picks or even have any of these guys suspended when everyone knew they were cheating. It’s this intersection between taking part and entertainment where this odd gatekeeping happens. I hated hydraulic disc brakes and EPS on race bikes, until I tried it, the stuff is great but for myself I still ride bikes without electronics and rim brakes sometimes. I pinch the barbs on my hooks when I fly fish, I know others don’t and probably catch fish that I don’t, but for me I pinch the barbs. Oddly, I find it acceptable to use completely modern lines and rods and can throw a fly way better than any angler could in years ago. I’ve been able to find more satisfaction competing against myself with my own criteria than worrying about the purity on tv.

scoofy 2y ago
No, for golf at least, it completely changes the way the game is played for even amateurs.
- TheCondor 2y ago
  Yeah, but you still can play with the harder to use clubs or older balls or whatever. Some amateur coming to the course and driving 300yds too easily doesn't have to change the way you play. I guess if you want to compete with them then there is that.

psunavy03 2y ago

Yeah, no. All this does is make golf more accessible and engaging to the average weekend hacker with like a 19+ handicap. Not everyone has the natural talent to play scratch golf, and of those that don't, not everyone is committed enough to spend day after day at the driving range. So all the tech improvements are doing is letting the average duffer keep it closer to the fairway and maybe have some fun, instead of getting so frustrated they quit.

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