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I just love when someone uses that word.  It is so harsh.  They cheated on their taxes, they cheated on their spouses and they cheated on their tests. YIKES !!!!! Can you imagine anyone cheating in football, baseball, ice hockey, basketball, sorry there are no enforceable rules in basketball ….

A cheater is defined as: one who acts dishonest, to elude by trickery or deception, lying.  So once again the world of technology has set golfers against each other in one of the last of the gentlemen sports; yes, Phil has been called a cheater. That’s right, Phil Mickelson has been branded a cheater by other pros because he is using a club that is within the rules, but which skirts the boundaries of acceptability according to technology rules.

That’s right, MR. TITLE IX, that aspect of sports that you keep protecting on FNM is now slithering its ugly bite into one of the last bastions of fair play. What is wrong with you technological geeks who keep thinking that the changing of the accessories is beneficial to the game? Please do not answer with the traditional: “well maybe they should still be playing with …….” Advancement is fine, but just as we have advanced with our automobiles, none of thinks that we should have cars that do a thousand miles an hour with roads that are filled with stop, stop, stop and go traffic.

So why do you and your cohorts feel that the constant change of the accessories will improve the sport? Why not just try to improve the athlete in a non-controversial way?  Or maybe you think it is fine that an athlete is called a; rogue, confidence man, quack, charlatan, conniver, fraud, beguiler, deceiver, trickster, inveigler, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, four-flusher, a shill, fake, pretender, hypocrite, con man, shark ….can’t use shark.

Gentlemen, awake from your world of metal clubs, belly putters, softer covered golf balls and GPS yardage finders, and realize that there are certain games that should be left alone. So what if you are not as strong and accurate as the next guy. So what if you cannot putt as well as everyone on the course. So what if your game is just a little south of John Daly’s.  THEN QUIT… or you could just enjoy the game you have when you head out to the golf course. And please, do not try to walk around the hazard if the rule of the game is bad for the spirit of the game, because then the rule should be changed not just bypassed. So please geeks, understand that your world of technology is ruining this game and other games as well.

I’ll tell you what; let’s give the best players of today’s game of golf some semi-antiquated equipment, persimmon woods, standard putters and golf balls that are under wound, and let us watch them play the game and see if the quality of the sport degenerates. If it doesn’t, then let us look at non-domed stadiums and allowing the sports to be played in the elements they were dealt. If we do that, then maybe when we try to discuss the greats of the generations we all seem able to relate to, there might be a sense of equality because they all played a very similar game. Then, the only ones who can be pointed at and called CHEATERS are the ones that broke the clear-cut rules of the game.

Once again it seems like controversy runs hand in hand with America as it battles the world under a spotlight of international competition. And what is in the middle of this controversy, needles, unknown synthetics and maybe another illegal product floating in the world of sports. That’s right this time it is seamstresses, designers, five yards of fabric and plastic dummies that have thrown world-class competition for a loop. For two weeks I have listened to how a swimsuit has turned the international swimming federation on its ear and has those not so adept at listening, the officials of the NCAA, standing up and whispering about the possible problems in the world of swimming. A SWIMSUIT

People let us realize that times do change and not always for the better, but the swimsuit, thank goodness, has progressed. The Victorian era is where we as a modern civilization saw the first real swimsuit as it relates to us today. Women were covered from head to toe; they wore swimsuits that were made out of flannel and/or wool (oh my goodness wool). Women wore suits that were long sleeved and had weighted hems on the skirts so that the suit would not float up on then while they were swimming. Besides that, they had to wear bloomers underneath the suit and swimming caps. As for the men they too were covered from head to toe and, as you might imagine, these suits would not only be cumbersome but would retain your body heat with any true physical activity.

In the 1920, swimsuits started to enter into the modern world, form fitting swimsuits started to become the way of the world at this time even though there were many that still would blush at the revealing aspects of these suits. MacRae introduced the figure hugging racer back swimsuit and the company Speedo was born.

The 1930s brought about the breathable swimsuits, fabrics were now explored and the cotton suit emerged on the scene, this was the time of Esther Williams the Olympic swimmer and Hollywood water ballets, the suit started to emerge for speed and quickness. In 1932 controversy arose for Australian Claire Dennis as too much shoulder was seen during 200 breaststroke and in 1936 the bare-chested swimsuits in the Berlin Olympics.

In 1940 the manufactures of swimsuits started to consider the dynamics of the sport and the true support structure of a suit and its influence and all of those who loved the world of water sports. This is the time when the two-piece suit was introduced just before the war and at the time the two-piece was still considered very scandalous and was banned from the beaches of Australia. Then because of World War II most swimsuit manufactures switched to designing life saving equipment for those involved in the Pacific battles of the war.

Then you come to the eras when swimsuits and societies views of swimsuits changed. In the 1950s and the 1960s, the two-piece swimsuit took off. Because of the rationing of fabric from World War II, designers started to put the two-piece on the market even though at the time it really looked more like a top and a pair of shorts. But because of the new fabrics on the scene, Lycra and Nylon, the suit became more form fitting than previous years. As for the sporting world, the true transformation for competitive swimming happened in the Melbourne Olympics of 1956, where a famous brand of swimsuit sponsored the Australian swim team and they swept the board with eight gold medals.

1968 started the ripple effect of brands cropping up all over the world. Manufacturers saw the beginning of a new revolution in marketing and money making. And when the 1968 Olympics saw 23 new world records in swimming, the firestorm had been lit.

In the 1970’s at Munich, 22 new world records were set, and as each event grew in magnitude, the drive to become faster and better built among all the Nations that were involved in global competition. In the 1976 Olympics at Montreal all the countries were looking for an edge, that edge was a swimsuit. The 1980’s were faster and the 1990’s looked for newer and better fabrics

Then, in the 2000’s, the swimming world unleashed a new product called FASTSKINS. The technology had helped those who maybe could no longer help themselves by one hundredth of a second.

Nike’s much ballyhooed and equally lambasted SQ Sumo2 driver ($480) is leading the charge into the engineering breach, pushing the limits of golf equipment. This behemoth club’s size (460c), shape (square) and moment of inertia (or MOI; nearing 5,900 g-cm2) are all pushing the USGA’s specified limits on design.

WOW, the world of technology, the advancement of sports, bigger, better, faster. Yet does one ever wonder if it is technology that makes the athlete better or has the athlete become so good that no matter what the level of the technology he would be superior to the athletes of yesteryear?

Just think of playing football in the 1960’s, Sam Huff, Jim Brown both wearing flak jackets and the latest GPS device that measures impact on a tackle. I am sure they would get up after a rough and tumble play and start conversing about the numbers on their impact meters and how the levels exceed suggested impact levels on a open field tackle.

The talk during this last Wimbledon was how the better players in the world were reducing the size of their rackets. They were scaling back down to the days of Jimmy Connors and Arthur Ashe. Even John McEnroe has said on numerous occasions he would love to see players have to go back to the same standard size rackets that he, Connors, Laver and others in the past had to play with on a competitive level.

At our last U.S. Open in golf many questioned not the difficulty of the golf course, but the fact that the majority of professional golfers can no longer hit a 1, 2, or 3 iron if they had to save their lives. Tiger, Jack, Arnold and especially Gary Player have suggested that the USGA needs to look at where technology is taking the game of golf.

As for the great National past time, people decided to use technology, it was called medical technology (steroids) and for some reason the sport of baseball turned their back on this technology after a period of time. Many believe that this technology was delivering a cluttered message that said “how do you look at a participant in a sport and compare them to the hero’s of the past if there is not somewhat of a level playing field for comparisons.”

Yes, sport after sport accepts technology to hopefully keep the game as entertaining as it was in the past. Plus the sporting world not only wants us as viewers of athletes on the world stage, but they also want us to feel as if we could play on the world stage. So advanced technology may not be so much for the games we view as it is for what we will buy to participate.

Does that mean I am against technology for safety reason? No ….nobody wants to see an athlete get hurt. But I do not want it used to mislead our attitudes about good athletes, not great athletes. You see I came from a sports era where every quarterback could be tackled, pitchers could brush back a hitter, tennis players could play at the net and golfers needed to know how to use every club in the bag.

Remember technology is a system that provides its members with those things desired not necessarily needed.