aliaba
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# Posted: 4 Mar 2010 19:48
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When golf was a (lopsided) ballEarly golf was played with a feathery golf ball — a stitched leather ball stuffed with boiled goose feathers. A feather ball cost three times as much as a club, and because feathery balls were delicate, players had to carry three to six balls at a time. The balls flew poorly in wet weather (a problem in Scotland), and were hard to putt, because they weren't round. They were closer to egg shaped, in fact. Although the feathery ball was a vast improvement over the wooden balls that preceded it, the gutta percha was an extraordinary breakthrough. In 1848, the Reverend Adam Paterson of St. Andrews introduced the gutta percha ball, or gutty, which was made from the sap of the gutta tree found in the tropics. When heated, the rubberlike sap could easily be fashioned into a golf ball. This invention, not to mention the spread of the railways, contributed to the expansion of golf. The gutty was considerably more durable than the feathery and much more affordable. After golfers discovered that bramble patterns and other markings on the gutty enhanced its aerodynamics, this ball swiftly achieved dominance in the marketplace. After 1900, the Haskell rubber-cored ball quickly replaced the gutta percha as the ball of choice.Invented two years earlier by Cleveland resident Coburn Haskell and manufactured by the B. F. Goodrich Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio, the Haskell ball, featuring a gutty cover and a wound rubber core, traveled farther (up to 20 yards more on average) and delivered greater durability. It didn't take much time for this new ball to gain acceptance, especially after Alexander "Sandy" Herd defeated renowned Harry Vardon and James Braid in the 1902 British Open at Hoylake, England, using the same Haskell ball for 72 holes. Most golfers today, on the other hand, use six to eight golf balls during a single round of a tour event.
The rest of the 20th century was spent refining the Haskell. In 1905, William Taylor invented the first dimpled ball, improving flight because the dimple pattern maximized lift and minimized drag. Around the time Taylor was playing with his dimples, Elazer Kempshall of the United States and Frank Mingay of Scotland were independently experimenting with liquid-core balls. In 1920, gutta percha began to fade entirely from use, replaced by a soft rubber called balata. It was another 50 years before a popular alternative to the Haskell came along. In 1972, Spalding introduced the first two-piece ball, the Executive. Today, two-, three-, and even four-piece balls dominate the market. (A three-piece ball has a thin extra layer between the cover and the core; a four-piece ball has a core within a core.) Many pros use three- or four-piece balls whose cover hardness, launch angle, and spin rate are perfectly tuned to their games. Go with a two-piece ball. I wouldn't recommend a three-piece ball to a beginning
golfer. Tour pros and expert players use such balls to maximize control. For many years, the best players used balls with covers made of balata, a soft, rubbery substance. Today, many high-performance three-piece balls have covers of something even better — high-performance urethane elastomer, which is a fancy way of saying "expensive superplastic." But you don't need that stuff. As a beginner, you need a reliable, durable ball. Unless you have very deep pockets and more cash than Bill Gates, go the surlyn, two-piece route. (Surlyn is a type of plastic first developed by the Dupont Corporation.) Most amateurs with double-digit handicaps use this type of ball. A surlyn-covered ball's harder cover and lower spin rate give you less feel — which is why better players tend not to use them — but, assuming that you don't whack them off
the premises, they last longer. They just might roll farther, too. Golf balls used to come in three compressions: 80, 90, or 100. The 80- compression ball was the softest, and the 100 the hardest. When I was growing up, I thought that the harder the ball (100 compression), the farther it would go. Not the case. All balls go far when hit properly, but each one feels a little different. How hard or soft you want the ball to feel has to do with your personal preference. These days, you needn't worry about compression. It's no longer such a big deal. Just determine whether you like a harder or softer feel, and swing away.
Take all the commercial hype with a grain of salt. Make that a handful. The most important things you need to know when buying golf balls are your own game, your own tendencies, and your own needs. Your local PGA professional can help you choose the golf ball best suited to you.
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