[Garland Bayley]

...
In golf, is it the materials borrowed from the space program for shafts, heads, and the like?  I know many don't like that idea, but it was a game changer.

How so? The average score and handicap did not budge given these "inventions". The only thing that changed was the cost went up significantly.

[Jeff Shelman]

The debit card is pretty good.

So is the iPad (which I will take 10 out of 10 over the iPod)

The internet?

The ProV1?

Drivers with titanium heads?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Garland,

You may be right.  It does seem that the perimeter weighted irons and big heads allow average golfers to get more shots airborn, but it would take the invention of the magnetic golf ball in combo with steel cups to really lower scores, so its hard to quantify.

So, if new clubs and balls are selling more hope than change, that leaves the question of what are the best golf related inventions in the last 40 years?

It might be some of the maintenance equipment that makes the supers job easier, less toxic golf course chemicals, tee time booking services, more water efficient irrigation systems (really a slow evolution rather than one time invention in most cases listed)

What else?  Cart girls? (insert smiley)

[Garland Bayley]

Jeff,

The game changer was the ball.

Before the ball change, no one was talking about bifurcation of the rules. No one was talking about Tiger proofing. No one was talking about saving our classic courses from being obsoleted or destroyed by lengthening.

Unfortunately the topic is "best" inventions.

[Bill_McBride]

Garland,

You may be right.  It does seem that the perimeter weighted irons and big heads allow average golfers to get more shots airborn, but it would take the invention of the magnetic golf ball in combo with steel cups to really lower scores, so its hard to quantify.

So, if new clubs and balls are selling more hope than change, that leaves the question of what are the best golf related inventions in the last 40 years?

It might be some of the maintenance equipment that makes the supers job easier, less toxic golf course chemicals, tee time booking services, more water efficient irrigation systems (really a slow evolution rather than one time invention in most cases listed)

What else?  Cart girls? (insert smiley)

In the long run it might be paspalum and/or desalination plants.

[John Kirk]

By far, the expansion of the Internet, a revolutionary game changer which .

Nothing comes close to second place.  For me, it's the iPod, or perhaps the hybrid electric automobile. 

[Paul Jones]

The Belly Putter 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bill McBride - Good points on Paspalum.  Maybe some other turf reseach.  Like I often say, there's more talk of grass varieties in the clubhouse these days than in the college dorms.

[Craig Van Egmond]

In my line of work,  the UNIX operating system (actually 43 years old)  and its various incarnations and the Web browser (which made the Internet useful to the masses).  C programming probably a close 3rd.

I am such a nerd.

[Duncan Cheslett]

No question about it...


...the cordless drill!

[Kalen Braley]

I suppose someone has to chime in with the suckup vote!

GCA.com!!!   

[noonan]

Remote controls are over 40 years old

[Bill_McBride]

Bill McBride - Good points on Paspalum.  Maybe some other turf reseach.  Like I often say, there's more talk of grass varieties in the clubhouse these days than in the college dorms.

It's really all about the lack of water than looms large and may dwarf the diminishing supply of oil in the long run.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Remote controls are over 40 years old

MAybe for some, but for the masses?   This thread had me serching back and I recall a family 12" B/W (look it up youngsters) TV where you could change channel via "the umbilical cord".  This was only 6' long and the change was activated by a vacuum effect when pushing a 'button' in the middle. We only had 3 channels and more often than not any jump involved moving accross two of them!  This was circa 1971, so remote control beats TIVO for me.


Heated seats? No thanks, they make me feel squirmy.

[Phil McDade]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the microwave oven. I can't imagine raising young children without it (seriously).

The internet and cell phones are the ones mentioned so far that ring truest. But among the things that were novel to me when I was growing up, and now are commonplace, and -- importantly to this discussion, I'd argue -- used nearly everyday, I'd put the microwave oven up there in the top 5.

[Rich Goodale]

1.  Screw tops for wine bottles.
2.  The CLAW (tm)

[David Cronheim]

Easy - Chick Fil A and the internet. Can't do without either.

[Howard Riefs]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the microwave oven. I can't imagine raising young children without it (seriously).

It first hit the market in 1947.

http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven

[Phil McDade]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the microwave oven. I can't imagine raising young children without it (seriously).

It first hit the market in 1947.

http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven

Howard:

From wikipedia:

The new oven was shown at a trade show in Chicago, and helped begin a rapid growth of the market for home microwave ovens. Sales volume of 40,000 units for the US industry in 1970 grew to one million by 1975....By 1986, roughly 25% of households in the U.S. owned a microwave oven, up from only about 1% in 1971.

The internets technically date back to at least the 1960s.

[Mike Nuzzo]

I'm surprised the spandex isn't getting more love...
Have you forgotten the pre-spandex landscape of the 1950s:


vs. 20....  who cares

[Carl Johnson]

1.  Screw tops for wine bottles.
. . .

Ditto that.  And the internet - as a practical tool.

RE: heated car seats.  Here's an "all-weather" package Subaru includes on a lot of models they're selling here in piedmont North Carolina: heated seats, heated side mirrors and a windshield wiper de-icer.  Pretty useless in these parts.

[Ed Brzezowski]

interchangable graphite shafts and whatever made single malts more available in the U.S. market. That internet thigny is third.

[Michael Whitaker]

The Thermos Bottle

"How do it know?"

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

Our fathers must have found the 50's ladies clothing sexy enough, or we wouldn't be here.  It seems that goes back to the apple and all of that!

[Patrick Kiser]

Sharks with freaking laser beams attached to their heads?  

I'll go with fuel injection like on the '72 BMW 2002tii...

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