The history of the golf ball

June 7, 2010

The modern game of golf is a sport with an illustrious and lengthy history: the first recorded game occurred sometime around 1297. Of course what would golf be without that ubiquitous little sphere – the golf ball - that we’ve all seen many more times than once? We’ve come a long way to reach the four-layer soft-cover/firm-core surlyn golf balls that are now in use!

Believe it or not, for over 400 hundred years, golf balls were made entirely of wood; this of course meant a golf ball that fared feebly in terms of aerodynamics and the like. This poor state of affairs persisted until the invention of what we now call the feathery ball (also known as the feather or featherie ball). The feathery ball itself was hand sewn cowhide outside, and very tightly packed goose feathers inside (hence the name). The leather and feathers were boiled separately and then hastily formed together into a ball before anything began drying. At the time this was a revolutionary invention that really added a lot of new dynamics to the game of golf; this ball was not only hard, but could fly over 250 yards, and was generally far superior in terms of flight characteristics to its wooden forbearers.

The feathery ball would not be dethroned for over 200 years. There were of course downsides to this design; even the best artisan could only churn out feathery balls at a rate of three or four per day, and a single ball cost the equivalent of $20 nowadays. And the feathery ball still shared the wooden ball’s propensity for irregular flight patterns.

In 1848 the game of golf was once more revolutionized, this time by the Reverend and Doctor Robert Adams Patterson. He invented the gutta-percha ball, often time’s referred to as the gutta ball. This golf ball was derived from dried tree sap, which lent it a rubbery feel and allowed for a more perfectly round figure. The appearance of the gutta ball coincided with the discovery that a ball would fly a more accurate trajectory if it had little imperfections in it, and manufactures began to purposely nick their products. In just a few years time, the gutta ball fully replaced the feathery ball as the preeminent golf ball. The reign of the gutta ball would be short-loved compared to that of the feathery…

Less than a century after Robert Adams Patterson unleashed his gutta-percha ball on the world of golf, multi-layered balls were developed, by an Ohioan named Coburn Haskell. The first multi-layered consisted of covered rubber tightly wound around a soft or hard core. These so-called wound balls quickly gained widespread appeal and remained present in the sport of golf up until the end of the 20th century.

Modern balls are still multi-layered but are now composed of the synthetic materials surlyn or urethane. They are either two, three, or four layers, habitually depending on the skill level of the player using the balls (the lower swing speeds of the less skilled, and their habit of losing balls often, suite them better to two-layered balls, while a pro would gravitate towards three or four-layered balls). Golf ball manufacturers can now apply the power of computers to fine-tuning golf balls, and are able to create a plethora of different types of balls, each with specific characteristics. Yes, we’ve definitely come a long way since the wooden golf ball…