Does improved sports equipment technology diminish achiement?

Great Debates
1

This year I decided to work hard at improving my golf game. I am taking lessons, and have been playing and practicing more than in any recent years. Tho I am still inconsistent, I am very pleased with where my swing and my overall game seem to be going.

Over the weekend I bought some new golf clubs. A driver, and 2 “iron-woods.” (Tour Edge JMAX driver and #2&4 iron-woods for those golf geeks who might care!:wink: My biggest weaknesses are erratic tee shots, and an inability to hit my 3 and 4 irons.)

There have been tremendous changes in golf equipment technology over my golf career. I played my best golf when I was in high school, using a set of steel shafted laminate woods. Cavity back irons with heel and toe weighting were the new thing. About 10-15 years ago, I bought a new set - midsized metal woods with graphite shafts.

My new driver barely seems to be the same creature as my old driver. This thing is huge, made out of 2 kinds of titanium, with a looong shaft. The bottomline is, it seems to be a lot easier to hit than my old driver. Even mishits tend to go further and straighter. (Of course, we’ll have to wait and see whether my game actually improves with the new clubs.)

I was surprised to realize that I almost felt that I was cheating by trying to improve my game with the assistance of technology. Even if I get my handicap down to where it was in the 70s, will I be as good a golfer as I was then if I am not using the same equipment? A part of me says instead of buying new clubs, I should simply work on improving my swing and mentality. What do you think?

Of course, I don’t know how one can ignore technological advances without reverting to knocking “featheries” around a sheep pasture with carved tree roots.

Tennis seems like a similar sport. I remember when Borg attempted comeback using wodden raquets. No luck against today’s oversized graphite compound raquets.

How about firearms and archery? Or speedskating “clapskates”? Aluminum bats in college baseball? High-tech “swimsuits”?

Do changes in technology interfere with comparisons across generations of athletes? Do they interfere with the ability to keep meaningful records?

2

The answer to your question is often yes. Many records are siply how athletes do against each other, all using the same equipment. How many majors Tiger wins has more to do with the strength of the field than the quality of the equipment (Mickelson’s remarks notwithstanding). On the other hand, who has the lowest absolute cscores on a given course is going to be equipment related. And then you have changes in the course themselves-- it’s kind of an arms race between equipment makers and course designers.

Not sure if this is a debate, but just let me know when you want to talk about golf, in any forum, and I’m there!:slight_smile:

I’m waiting for the time when I worry about things llike which brand of golf ball I use. Because right now it’s the drivee and not the driver that is holding me back…

3

I don’t buy that for one second, John.

Give me a good set of clubs, and I still suck. You have to be able to use the equipment, and since equipment is constantly evolving into something better, it negates any advantage over time.

Tiger’s advantage is that he’s consistently better than anyone else out there. Lots of golfers hit longer, lots chip better, and lots putt better, but he can do all three at a level others cannot attain.

But let’s not take this conversation to golf. My opinion is no, the equipment can’t diminish achievement because the talent required to achieve anything is the dominant factor.

4

But take my example. As a teenager, I used to shoot around 80, with what would now be considered primative sticks. Now I’m around 90. If I get back to 80, but do it with my new high-tech sticks, can I consider myself as good a golfer as I was 3 decades ago?

Yes, they are building new golf courses differently than old. But the US Open will be on an old time track this year. And they can only change Augusta, Pebble Beach, Pinehurst, and Firestone so much. Tiger is clearly the best of the current generation, because they are all using the same clubs. (An often underlooked facet is that the top pros have balls engineered specifically for their games.) Same way you could say Jack Nicklaus and a couple of others were the top of their class. But can you meaningfully compare Tiger Woods as a golfer with - say - Ben Hogan? Who is to say how Hogan would do with today’s technlogy?

I seem to recall hearing that, despite improvements in technology, the average golf score has not changed meaningfully. Will have to look that up.

As far as records are concerned, how about swimming? Last time I saw it on TV, the guys were wearing whole body suits supposedly designed to reduce drag or somesuch. If someone sets a world record wearing such garb, can that achievement be compared to the records set by Mark Spitz?

Did archery records bear asterisks after the introduction of the compound bow?

5

I shoot around 85, be it with my own vintage 1968 hand-me-down clubs or the new expensive space-age ones.

In my experience, it doesn’t matter.

6

AD:

Huh? Sounds like you agree exactly with what I was saying. (And by the way, anyone who can consistantly shoot in the mid-80s is a very respectable amateur, probably in the top 10% of casual players.)

I’ve always said it’s 95% player and 5% equipment when it comes to sports.

What is probably more significant than equipment is modern techniques for analyzing the swing. Golf mag recently had an article on why the pros are improvong their driving distance faster than “hackers” even when both use the same equipment. The difference is that the pros spend 1000s of $$ using sophisticaed launch angel and ball spin analysis equipment to match up the perfect combo of ball type, shaft length, shaft stiffness, club head material and club head loft to their specific swing. To hit the ball super long you have to have all these working together. Essentially, they analyze their ball flight characteristics with a variety of club/ball combos (essentially trial and error) until they get it right. Hackers could do this and gain significant distance (assuming their not overly hooking or slicing), but it’s pretty expensive.

7

I was going off of this. My bad.

8

AD:

Do you really think that new golf equipment does not make it hard to compare golf records of today’s golfers against those of 50 yrs ago? Like, I said, when you compare records of current players, well they all have the same quipment, so no biggy. But the newer clubs, and especially the newer balls, are so much superior to what was used 50 yrs ago. Else, why would the players bother using the new stuff?

For the casual hackers like you and me, I think you are correct (as I said) that better equipment has very limitted returns. The weak link is swing technique and that tends to overide equipment issues. But when you’re competing at the level of Woods/Mickelson/Els, even a 1 or 2% edge can be enormous. Now, everybody doesn’t react the same to the new equipment, and sometimes it is better to stick with what you’re used to if changing equipment means reworking your swing to take advantage of that equipment. But… these guys don’t use the equipment in order to get an endorsment contract-- they need to win!

9

Checked some stats here: http://www.pgatour.com/stats/index.html

Scoring average:
1980, Lee Trevino led with 69.73. Only 2 players broke 70.
Then, in 1988, a whopping 14 broke 70.
In 1997, Nick Price was the first to break 69.
In 2000, Tiger was the first to break 68.
This year, Tiger leads with a scoring average of 68.47, and 9 players are under 70.

Driving distance:
Hank Kuehne leads with 315.3. # 10 is 299.9.
In 1980, #1 was 274.3.
280 was broken in 1986, and John Daley broke 300 in 1997.

Birdie average:
In 1980, Tom Watson led with 3.76 birdies per round.
This year, 34 players are averaging over 4 per round.

I don’t think anyone would argue that 34 of today’s players are that much better than Tom Watson was near his prime.

10

Dinsdale:

While I tend to agree with you on this, it is hard to factor in the strength of the field equation. More people play golf today, hence a larger talent pool feeding into the pros, hence better average scores, and more statistical outliers. It’s not all equipment.

11

Also, don’t underestimate the effect that changing course design has had on scores. There have been some pretty radical changes in recent years, even at Augusta. But they’re quickly running out of land to make them longer, so that’s why there’s talk of standardizing the golf ball or enforcing stricter limits on drivers.

Some would argue (like Palmer) that the designers just need to be more clever and make the holes harder, not longer. Sometimes the tougest hole turns out to be a drivable par 4 that punishes you for going for it and missing. Lure the sucker in, and then whack 'em if they don’t hit a perfect shot. Make the courses interesting, not just long.

12

I recall that a certain type of aerodynamic javelin was banned from the olympics in the 60s because all the athletes were shattering world records left and right with it.

I disagree with the view that improved technology limits achievement. I would say that technology only raises the bar for everyone, and enables mankind to make better and better use of our bodies. If we’re limiting technology to be certain that our bodies are the ones doing the achieving, why use equipment at all? Throw that damn golf ball at the hole, you don’t need no stinkin club!

13

So is it the equipment that allowed the 100 meter record to be broken?

How about the marathon record?

Different times, different circumstances. These guys buff up in the gym for hours on end, take good care of themselves, and as a result can absolutely crush the ball.

Tiger might lose 20 yards or so on his drive with the old stuff. Small change when you’re that accurate with the rest of the clubs in your bag.

My point is that incremental gains can be made with a little here and a little there. I will not accept that the equipment makes the athlete. More evidence to this is given with baseball. The bats are still ash, the ball is still cork wrapped in string covered with hide, and yet since 1919 the home run record has gone from 29 to 73. That’s a 252% improvement with what is demonstrably the same equipment. Are the bats better? No. Are the balls better? No. Are the athletes better? Absolutely.

It’s not the equipment.

14

Do I think there are 34 golfers better than Tom Watson was in his prime? Actually, yes, there probably are, just as there are 34 linemen in the NFL now better than Mean Joe Greene was, and just as there are probably 34 guys in major league baseball today who can hit the ball farther than Mike Schmidt could.

In his prime, meaning the late Seventies and early Eighties, Watson was the world’s best golfer. At about that same time, Joe Greene Lambert was regarded as the ultimate lineman and Schmidt as the greatest power hitter. But times change, and the nature of games changes. When I was a teen, there’d be one or two players on any baseball team with massive biceps. Today, even shortstops and second basemen often have muscular physiques! When I was a teen, a 275 pound tackle seemed like a monster; today, he’d be regarded as “undersized.”

The difference in golf is obvious, too. Quite apart from the better equipment, there’s the fact that golf is no longer just a rich man’s sport. A lot more people are playing golf today, which means the pool of possible PGA players is larger than ever. And with guys like Tiger Woods raising the bar, more and more golfers are putting in time in weight rooms and spending more and more hours working on their games.

In fact, I’d bet that Tom Watson himself works far harder to be an also-ran today than he did to becoem golf’s greatest player 20+ years ago.

15

There is no question that technology does have an effect on sports today, but I argue that it takes a backseat to the effects of improved training employed by many of today’s elite and recreational athletes.

In sports measured purely on human achievement (think short and long distance running, the hammer throw, etc, etc), almost every record is re-written with some frequency. Some individual feats do stand for some time (the long-jump record that lingered for 30 years) before falling, but they do fall. This says to me that today’s elite atheletes are simply better trained than their predecessors, and hence better performers. Granted many sports are showing a ‘plateua’ in terms of performance records, but they have improved.

I don’t believe it is a great leap to extrapolate this to other sports where technology plays a greater role. While the speed of skaters or the power of tennis players or the distance a javelin flies may be impacted by technology, the current crop of athletes are simply better trained than their predecessors, and the money is there for many of them to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of peak performance. That is something the previous generations could not rightly boast. And it allows players like Tiger to take time off to rehab injuries, and come back in better shape than when he went out.

Certainly the new wave of sporting goods does give the weekend warrior more control or distance or speed in some cases. That’s the whole point of them. But if that encourages people to get off the couch and onto the links or rinks, then who cares? I wouldn’t worry about catching up with your former self on the golf course, I would concentrate on making the most of your current game, and enjoying the sun.

16

Stephen J. Gould’s weighs in on baseball. Courtesy of Mother Jones (this was the first cite that google turned up-- I know he’s expounded this in other places):

17

I really think there’s two separate realms you have to consider when you talk about this. Team sports like basketball, football, baseball, etc. are, at their core, a clash between competitor and competitor. Golf, along with many track and field events and probably some stuff I’m neglecting, is a comparison of one competitor’s results against the environment to another competitor’s results against, hopefully, the same environment. In other words, Sergio Garcia can’t steal the ball from Tiger Woods or block his shot, so he’s not really playing against him, just hoping he plays better. Golfers compete against each other through a sort of buffer, not directly. That leads me to believe that equipment in golf is much more likely to affect the absolute measurables (like driving distance and score) than equipment in a team sport. Batting averages, or goals scored, or rushing yards all need to be accomplished against athletes who are trying to prevent these things, and who have access to the same equipment and training as everyone else. All golfers through history are competing on a somewhat more static playing field, whether it be Bobby Jones or Arnold Palmer or, um, Craig Stadler (I don’t really know too much about golf). If Bobby Jones had a titanium driver or whatever, we can reasonably assume he’d hit the ball farther. We can’t say the same thing about Ty Cobb if he had weight training, because maybe if the pitchers of that era had, say, video scouting, they’d have offset that training, and Cobb would’ve still hit .360.

18

John Mace already mentioned Stephen Jay Gould. His excellent book “Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin” explains a wonderful theory of the disappearance of the .400 hitter in baseball and relates to excellence being achieved in a set of arbitrary rules over an extended period of time.

That being said, does anyone remember Bjorn Borg’s attempted comeback in tennis where he (with luddite tendencies, perhaps) refused to use anything but his trusty wooden tennis racket that he won so many tournaments with in the 70’s? You know, wood has a better feel and response and all that… how well did that go?

19

Equipment is only one component. Athletes are better trained now than they were in previous generations, and have an expanded idea of what’s possible. Nutrition is a lot better as well. And sports medicine is a much more common specialty among doctors than it was in previous generations. Steroid abuse is not only more refined, but so is the science of hiding it from detection.

I suck at all sports, and all the titanium drivers, sharkskin full-body swimsuits and aluminum bats don’t give me any kind of edge. The competitive athlete is much more focused and better-prepared today than his grandfather was.

20

I think it’s silly to argue that technology doesn’t have an effect on results. Why do you think a corked bat is illegal? Or certain golf balls? The question has always been how to let new technology into the game without destroying the essence of the game, and while keeping the promoters happy, who have equipment to sell and need new innovations to sell it.

Look at pro tennis. Would anyone argue that the men’s game was changed forever with the inclusion of the larger-head, more powerful rackets? Many would say that those rackets destroyed the game, by taking what was a game of finesse and strategy and turning it into a contest to see who can power in the most aces or fire back killer returns. Not much serve-and-volley, and not even as many baseline duels. The rally average has gone down significantly.

Every sport I can think of has legal restrictions on the use of many kinds of technology, because it provides too much of an advantage.