Baseball is actually a very interesting test case for a golf rollback. In baseball, the reason for the bifurcation in the first place was economics (similar to why steel shafts came to be in golf)- a college player goes through about 5 bats per season with metal vs 50-100 with wood. And when they allowed aluminum bats in 1974, they were heavy and didn't give any performance advantage over wood. The bifurcated system steadily caused problems over time as the bat tech advanced and the bats got lighter and more trampoline like- scouts soon had trouble telling who's hitting would translate to the MLB and injuries were occurring and generating litigation.
In order to solve these problems, a very significant rollback occurred in college baseball in 2011 with the metal bats and it drastically changed the college game and made it more similar to MLB. The new bat standard lowered the advantage of the metal bats over wood and the change lowered the number of homeruns per game by nearly 50% and returned it to 1973 levels. Runs scored per game went from about 7 to just over 5. Batting averages went from .305 to .270. And one unintended consequence from the change was that the average time for a college baseball game drastically decreased- by nearly half and hour per game.
The bat change brought back the need to have well rounded players since defense became necessary again and since hitters could no longer get away with sloppy fundamentals. Per a coach, "I'm a fan of the new regulations. By reducing the margin of error, they benefit the good players at the expense of players who had poor hitting fundamentals but were saved by a bat that could perform miracles." My words here- before the change, it was really hard for scouts to figure out which hitters were frauds and which were the real deal. A player would look great with the light/ springy bats and then be a flop in the MLB. As golf fans, we're like the scout that is wowed by guys who would get exposed at the next level... we just never see the next level.
One other observation from baseball. "An interesting 1994 study of Japanese High School baseball players comparing the wood-only and metal bat eras in Japanese baseball found that after the introduction of metal bats, winning teams had a higher percentage of larger, stronger players. In the wood-only era winning teams won games by getting lots of men on base with well placed singles, moving players by stealing bases and sacrifice bunts, and applying squeeze plays. After metal bats were introduced, winning teams won mostly by relying on the long ball with larger players who had built up muscle mass through weight training and who could take advantage of the hotter metal bats to hit more multiple-base hits and home runs."
Golf isn't changing because of the athletes, the athletes are being drawn into the game and/or rewarded because golf equipment changed.
Peter,
The golf-baseball bifurcation analogy has come up many, many times over the years, and while I agree with you that it's interesting, I continue to believe that it is a poor analogy at best, and not really helpful at all to the rule-making bodies of golf.
As you point out, amateur baseball went to metal bats for cost reasons rather than performance issues, which the exact reverse of what is being discussed in golf. Professional baseball stayed the same, and remains that way, and the metal bats used by amateurs have been constantly changed, most recently to more accurately mirror the equipment being used by the pros. I don't think any of that is instructive for golf.
And the idea that bifurcation has worked in baseball and so could work in golf ignores the central difference between the two sports, which is participation by the masses. I play golf 4 times a week with a bunch of old guys; we ALL played baseball a thousand years ago, but no more. The golf "industry" is based on continued participation by amateurs; there is no such thing in amateur baseball, even if you count recreation softball.
In short, the bifurcation of baseball was done for different reasons than those that face golf, and impacts a completely different demographic than golf.
Two other points: MLB is currently grappling with how to deal with fundamental changes in the way the game is being played, including the heavy emphasis on launch angles and hitting the ball in the air, rather than on the ground, or even line drives. There are new strikeout records being set every year now. The ethic in MLB has become, more and more, to try to hit a home run and to accept a high rate of strikeouts as the cost. It's not the only issue that MLB is facing, but it's a big one, and it exists in spite of wood bats.
And finally, I'd change your last point to money rather than equipment being the draw for bigger, stronger athletes to golf. There has never been a time in the history of golf where longer hitters weren't advantaged, regardless of equipment; that is no more true today than ever. There ARE more long hitters today, for sure, but you'd be hard pressed, I think, to prove that they came to golf because they thought the equipment would work to their favor.