Golf Ball History
In the earliest days of golf on the eastern coast of Scotland, players used primitive equipment to play the game in a rather haphazard and casual manner. The first clubs and balls specifically made for golf were fashioned from wood. One documented reference is that of a John Daly playing with a wooden ball in 1550.
Golf balls made of woods were used in 17th century , This is the time featherie ball (handsewn cowhide bag stuffed with goose feathers and coated with paint) was invented. This was a handcrafted ball made with goose feathers tightly packed into a horse or cow hide sphere. remained the standard ball for more than two centuries because of good flight characteristics.
Dr. Robert Adams invented the gutta percha ball (or guttie ) in 1848. They replaced feather balls completely within a few years. Because gutties were cheaper to produce and could be manufactured with textured surfaces to improve their aerodynamic qualities,
After 1880, gutties were produced with patterns on their surface in an attempt to reproduce the distance characteristics of a scored Featherie. With the Victorians came industrialisation and mechanisation, and by 1890 Gutties were being made in moulds which further increased their affordability, consistency and quality. The most notable pattern of the period was the 'Bramble' - raised spherical bumps across the surface of the ball. Many of the rubber companies including Dunlop began mass-producing balls which killed off the handcrafted ball business.
A multi-layer balls were developed in 20th century, first as wound balls consists of a liquid filled solid core with a layer of rubber thread , a thin shell. The design allowed makes to tweak the length, spin characteristics of balls. Wound balls were valued for their soft feel.
Within this period, a lot of experimentation with the patterns on golf balls . one of the reasons why golf collecting is so interesting. William Taylor applied first the dimple pattern to a Haskell ball in 1905, this started golf balls took on their modern form. This pattern with dimple design maximises lift while minimising drag.
In 1898, Coburn Haskell introduced the one-piece rubber cored ball which was universally adopted by 1901 after it proved so effective in the British and US Opens. These balls looked just like Gutties but gave the average golfer an extra 20 yards from the tee. These balls were constructed from a solid rubber core wrapped in rubber thread encased in a gutta percha sphere. Once W. Millison developed a thread winding machine, Haskell balls were mass-produced and therefore more affordable.
Makers continued to experiment with golf ball design including BF Goodrich who introduced the pneumatic ball in 1906. This was called a Haskell ball made of compressed air core but unfortunately very prone to expansion with heat , therefore causing the ball to explode. Some tried mercury and some cork and metal cores. in 1972 Spalding introduced the very first 2 piece ball
The R&A and USGA standardised the size and weight of the ball in 1921. From then further constraints have been proposed both organisations differed on the dimensions of the golf ball which meant that the game played on either side of the Atlantic was similar but different between 1931 and 1990,.
Nowadays there is a lots of variety of golf balls to suit the individual game and circumstance. There are Some that offer control and some offer distance and others are suitable for practicing only. Golf balls have progressed into titanium cores, with hybrid materialsa and softer shells and a more pressurized core. They usually consist of a 2 or 4 design, consisting of various synthetic materials like surlyn or urethane blends. They are available in a great variety of playing characteristics to suit the needs of golfers of different proficiency.