The History Of The Golf Ball

The first balls and clubs used in gold were made from wood

. Balls being made from this material meant that the swings were not very accurate.

1618 saw the introduction of the next generation of the golf ball, in the form of the Featherie. This was constructed from horse or cow hide and goose feathers. The feather were packed into the hide, which was formed into a sphere. Next the construct was soaked so that it could easily be shaped into a ball. The ball would become extremely hard once is had dried due to the action of the feathers expanding and the hide contracting. Once fully dry the ball was painted. These balls were had crafted, and each crafter placed their own mark on the balls they made.

After the wooden ball,came rubber, in the form of the Gutta Percha. This rubber golf ball construction was the creation of Reverend Adam Paterson of St. Andrews, Scotland, who introduced the ball to golf in 1848. Its name was derived from its key component, that being the sap of the Gutta-percha tree. The Gutta-percha tree can be found in the tropics of south east Asia and northern Australasia.

The ball's new material meant that it could easily be repaired if damaged, just by reheating the ball, then remoulding. A down side to this new ball design, was that it had a smooth surface, this was bad because it prevented the ball from travelling a decent distance, in fact it was not able to travel as far as the old Featherie golf balls. In 1880 the golf balls were given a patterned surface, thus allowing greater distance.

The industrial age of the 19th century brought mass production of the Gutta Percha. With so many balls being produced so cheaply and therefore available to the public at an affordable price, the days of the hand crafted golf ball were numbered.

A new design appeared at the end of the 19th century, created by Coburn Haskell. This design consisted of three parts, an outer Gutta Percha shell, a solid rubber core and a threaded rubber layer covering the core. Mass production was not possible for this golf ball design when it first came out, because the threaded rubber layer had to be constructed by hand. It was not until one W. Millson created a thread winding machine that the ball could then be mass produced.

Dimples became part of the golf ball design, when in 1906 William Tyler included them in the Haskell golf ball design. This improved the golf balls lift and reduced its drag.

Some might consider the sight of exploding golf balls to be that of clowns in a circus or a prank on a comedy, but in 1906 someone actually made this reality on the golf course, when they introduced a golf ball with a compressed air core. These balls had a tendency to explode when they heated up, due to the air expanding with the heat, and ripping the ball to pieces.

1921 brought standardisation of the size and weight of golf balls. These standards were laid down by the R&A in Scotland and the USGA in America. A problem with these rulings though, was that they were not the same between the two organisations. It was not until 1990 before the two sets of standards unified to give us the set of standards still in use today.

by: Chucksta

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