Are we getting dumber?
It’s a deliberately provocative question,but one that’s been nagging at me after years spent around the best golf-equipment minds in the game. The answer, I think, is yes—or at least we’re becoming less wise. The true masters of the craft are older now, and what worries me is not just that they’re retiring, but that there’s no obvious bench behind them. The succession plan for wisdom seems to have been lost.
Where once knowledge was accumulated slowly, through years of apprenticeship, observation, and repetition, today it feels like expertise is expected to arrive overnight. We want shortcuts, quick fixes, and instant mastery. That shift isn’t just happening in golf - it’s cultural - but it shows up starkly in the way we talk about and interact with equipment.
Part of the problem is cultural. We live in an age that valorises the shortcut. Television competitions turn lifetime crafts into weekend challenges. Social media celebrates the “hack” over the habit. Everywhere you look, the message is that knowledge can be skimmed rather than earned.
Golf hasn’t escaped this drift. In fact, it may be one of the clearest examples. Where once intuition and observation were central, “tech” has taken over as the supposed arbiter of truth. I think often of Phil Rogers, who could teach and fit using nothing more than his eyes and ears. The sound of a strike, the flight of the ball, the shape of a divot - these were his launch monitor. That ability to interpret reality directly, without an intermediary screen, is close to a lost art.
Meanwhile, marketing budgets and R&D departments have been only too happy to reinforce the myth of relentless progress. Every season brings a “revolution” in performance, a promise that the next head shape or shaft profile will unlock something extraordinary. What actually gets displaced in the process is judgement. Instead of learning to read and understand shots, we’re encouraged to trust the brochure and buy the upgrade.
The seasoned experts - often ex-players or lifelong craftsmen who reached a high playing level and then dedicated decades to the art of fitting and building - are thinning out. Their authority didn’t come from trophies, but from a combination of skill, curiosity, and time spent solving real problems. Crucially, that authority and authenticity meant they could talk to players on their level. They knew what it was to hit the shots, to feel the strike, to live the game under pressure. That shared experience made every interaction cumulative and valuable.
By contrast, much of today’s tour scene feels like a mirror of the broader celebrity culture. Talent is worshipped, not questioned. The fitter or builder is often there to validate rather than challenge, and the conversation is reduced to servicing preferences rather than elevating performance. The depth of the dialogue has thinned. What used to be a two-way exchange—knowledge meeting feel, craft meeting intent—now risks becoming a ritual of affirmation, played out under the glow of launch monitor numbers.
Today’s norm is trial-and-error by catalogue. Pros can survive it because they’re consistent and sensitive. Recreational golfers? They get rinsed. Fittings default to swapping heads and shafts until the numbers look pretty; intent, impact, and craft go missing.
It wasn’t always like this. In the 1970s, the club professional was the beating heart of golfing expertise. They had to carry a broad knowledge of the game - the whole game. They were better coaches because they understood equipment, and better at equipment because they spent their days teaching. Many could build custom clubs themselves, or make meaningful adjustments to a player’s existing set. The loop between coaching and clubmaking made them indispensable guides.
Then the economics shifted. Big companies arrived with the idea of selling clubs straight off the rack. Club pros, often under financial pressure, took the easy option and participated - unknowingly - in their own decline. Once clubs could be sold through big-box stores, the expertise of the professional was no longer required at the point of sale. Everyone was poorer for it: players lost trusted advisors, pros lost a cornerstone of their profession, and only the anonymous shareholders of the large corporations benefitted.
The consequences linger. These days, pros are pushed to specialise. The typical teaching professional knows little-to-nothing about equipment, and the typical club technician rarely teaches. That split is damaging. A coach might work for hours on a swing change without realising the pupil’s club specification makes the movement impossible. Instead of spotting the mismatch, they keep drilling the same cue. It’s a counterproductive loop that frustrates players, entrenches bad habits, and reinforces the false idea that progress is just about “working harder.”
So yes, we are getting dumber - or at least more comfortable with not noticing. The drift from wisdom to convenience has been slow but relentless, and in golf it shows up every time someone mistakes data for understanding. Launch monitors and R&D departments are not then enemy; they’re extraordinary tools. But tools only matter in the hands of people who know how to use them, and that kind of judgement can’t be mass-produced.
Until we rebuild the hierarchy, we’ll keep confusing more data with better golf. Knowledge and craft should always lead, and technology should always serve.
If golf is to move forward, we need to reclaim that balance. That means valuing broad knowledge again - teachers who understand equipment, builders who understand swings, fitters who understand a golfer’s interaction with a club and the sound of the strike. It means rewarding curiosity and apprenticeship, not just sales. And it means questioning the idea that progress is only ever a newer head, a different shaft, or a shinier brochure.
Because the truth is, when the conversation between player and expert is rooted in craft, everyone wins. Golfers improve faster, equipment performs better, and the game feels richer. When that connection breaks, all that’s left is trial-and-error shopping and the thin comfort of numbers on a screen.
The question, then, isn’t whether we’re getting dumber. It’s whether we’re willing to do something about it.