From shepherds and stones to state of the art balls flying hundreds of yards down immaculate fairways, the golf ball has changed beyond recognition over hundreds of years.
How did we arrive at the little dimpled beauty that we know and love today? Let’s take a journey back to a surprising origin story and explore the different types of balls to have graced greens throughout the history of golf.
Sticks and stones
Legend has it that golf’s “eureka” moment came from a bored Scottish shepherd swinging his crook while his sheep grazed in the field. By a stroke of luck that made the shepherd’s day and spawned an entire sport, his crook caught a perfectly round stone flush in the middle, sending it rolling straight into a nearby hole.
Much to the confusion of his flock, the shepherd spent the rest of his day, week and month trying to repeat his success. He told all his shepherd friends, who gathered to see who could hole the most stones.
So, there you have it. The first golf ball was, apparently, a stone. Still, perfectly round stones were in short supply and it wasn’t long before golf-mad carpenters took things to the next level.
Wooden it be nice to have a better ball?
14th century carpenters certainly thought so. That’s why they started handcrafting golf balls out of wood – specifically beech. Smoother and easier to control, it’s no surprise they were a step up from stones.
Still, they were heavy and hard to hit. Apparently 80 yards (75 metres) was the furthest – although I’m sure DeChambeau might have had something to say about that.
Using wooden clubs and a wooden ball – which still wasn’t properly round by the way – meant that golf could be a stressful experience. Add the Highland winter weather into the equation and any semblance of control was minimal at best.
So the innovators of the time put their thinking caps on in a bid to create a ball that was lighter, rounder and easier to control.
Hairy balls in the Highlands
Hairy balls were all the rage in Scotland from the mid-15th century (what with kilts, they had to keep warm somehow) and led to a new way to think about golf ball design. They were originally made from cowhide leather and stuffed with hair – an idea imported from the Netherlands.
These balls were crudely made though and suffered a lot from water damage. But it wasn’t long before ball-smiths started making more sophisticated designs, looking to the skies and a few feathered friends for further inspiration.
The era of the “featherie”
The 17th century saw the invention of the “featherie,” which could be said to be the first ‘proper’ golf ball. The idea was to make a spherical cowhide casing, then stitch it shut but with a slight gap. This would be filled with feathers – usually goose feathers. The feathers and casing would be made wet and the casing would be stitched up. As they dried, the feathers expanded and the leather casing shrank. The result was a tight ball.
At the time, featherie balls were a real feat of sports engineering. They took ages to make though – a bucket of boiled goose feathers would be enough for just one ball and an expert featherie maker could only make four a day. That’s why, to begin with at least, they were very exclusive and only used by very wealthy golfers.
They certainly flew off the tee. Controlled tests in late 18th century Glasgow recorded an average distance of 193 yards (176 metres). Feathies would remain the benchmark ball right up until the middle of the 19th century.
The game-changing “guttie”
In 1843, a student at St Andrew’s named Robert Adams Paterson received a package from Singapore. The package was made from “gutta-percha” a type of dried gummy resin from a tree native to Malaysia called the Sapodilla. A keen golfer and amateur inventor, Paterson decided to try and make a golf ball by heating the resin and placing it in a mold to dry.
Legend has it that his experiments were unsuccessful, but that his brother carried on tinkering and arrived upon a new, solid golf ball that would go on to completely revolutionise the game. The guttie golf ball became the first mass-manufactured golf ball – easier to make, cheaper to buy and widely available, bringing the game to a wider section of society.
An accidental dimple discovery
After a while, golfers started to notice something strange. The guttie balls that had been banged up and dinged after a few rounds flew better than brand new ones. Way before the Wright Brothers figured out the finer points of aerodynamics, golfers had discovered that small indentations, or dimples, helped stabilise the flight path of the ball.
These dimples were made, at first, by making little nicks all over the surface of the ball with a hammer. Then the dimples were added to the molds during the manufacturing process.
The rubber core Balata ball comes bouncing in
A stroke before the beginning of the 20th century, a new ball came bouncing in to completely change the game forever. And, once again, chance played a part.
Coburn Haskell was waiting for his golfing buddy, Bertram Work, who worked at a rubber goods factory. While he waited, Haskell killed time by rolling rubber bands into a ball. With his upcoming golf game on his mind, he immediately thought of the amazing potential of rubber on the inside of a golf ball.
Haskell and Work patented their creation – a ball with a solid rubber core, surrounded by tightly wound rubber threads and coated with the sap from the rubberlike Balata tree. The Haskell golf ball revolutionised the sport and rubber cemented its status as a key component of the golf ball. The popularity of the Haskell ball continued until the 1960s.
The modern day golf ball
Haskell’s Balata skinned ball was eventually replaced by urethane and surlyn skins. Golf balls have remained at their core, with a layer of ionomer resin around the outside.
Many less expensive modern golf balls have only two layers – with just a synthetic resin centre and surlyn casing. Three-layered golf balls are also common and used by many pros, but there can be as much as five layers with synthetic rubbers and other materials.
Making a modern golf ball is now like a scientific process! A million miles away from that bored Scottish shepherd and his rolling stone.
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