Let’s test today’s champions using yesterday’s equipment

Tiger Woods watches his drive off the 5th tee during the second round of the Memorial Tournament at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, Friday, June 4, 2004. AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

There’s been some interesting sporting experiments in recent years: Nadal and Federer playing on a half-clay, half-grass court; the ICC World XI playing Australia in a Super Test and three one-day internationals; and the golfing obsession of seeing how the best females would go on the men’s tour.

They didn’t really prove much.

We already knew Federer (at the time) was better on grass and Nadal was better on clay. We already knew that that a champion team is better than a team of champions. And we already knew that women play on golf courses of considerably less length.

So what don’t we know, that we might want to know? What sporting experiment would give us an interesting hypothesis?

What about the idea that modern day players would struggle to perform with equipment from yesteryear? Now, this is something that’s created arguments, especially in cricket, golf and tennis.

Some believe there is a direct correlation between the increase in boundries hit in cricket and the improvement in cricket bats. I certainly think this is true. But it’s also due to the shortening of the playing area with ropes, and the attacking mindset that shortened forms of cricket produce.

So why not have a Twenty20 exhibition match at the MCG to test it out?

Make it Australia Vs Australia A at the start of the summer. Remove the ropes, and use the fence as the boundary.

Give the players bats from the 60s, and let’s see if the likes of Ricky Ponting, David Warner, and Phillip Hughes can still tonk it for fours and sixes.

It will be a test for the players to prove to the old fossils like Chappeli that it’s not just the bat, that they actually possess immaculate timing with any piece of willow.

In golf, you could have an 18-hole tournament with all the players having to use clubs from Bobby Jones’ era. There is a website where you can purchase “a complete reproduction of the clubs Bobby Jones actually carried during his remarkable 1930 Grand Slam”, which are fully playable.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see who would win with these clubs?

How would Tiger Woods go having to hit a “spade-mashie” iron into the green? And how would he go putting with the famous “Calamity Jane” putter?

Finally, in tennis, it would be simple: a match between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer with wooden racquets.

Who would win? How would Nadal go without getting the spin off his thick framed Babolat AeroPro Drive Cortext racquet?

Would Federer be able to control his groundstokes off the small sweet spot of a wooden Dunlop?

So many questions. It would be great to get some answers and see how much of a difference modern sporting equipment makes.

Who knows? Old equipment might just improve the techniques of some players.