It is part of society as well as a reflection of society. Its relationship with technology does need to change. But as I would advocate, sport needs to protect the essential elements, the essential challenge. In tennis for example, it needs to protect the ability to hit a top spin shot, it needs to limit the innovations that provide the ball with more rotations per second, than other innovations would. So while the relationship with technology will change over time, there needs to be certain protections of the essential skills that should not or will not change over time.
Golf is a test of hitting accuracy, driving distance and putting precision.
Those are skills that will not change over time and need to be protected even if other sorts of technologies do change. A tennis racquet was defined as 'the implement used to hit the ball', which meant you could use a broom, a bottle, anything that could hit the ball. But in 1977 an ingenious engineer came up with a new stringing system that sent the established tennis elite into an uproar. It created basically an immediate crisis on the professional tour, this 'spaghetti stringing system'. It was three planes of non-intersecting strings, with a plastic coating on the outside of the strings.