History Of The Golf Ball
By Dan Kilbank - OttawaGolf




The very first balls were likely just rocks or pebbles. Wooden golf balls were the first man-made balls and may have been made of hardwoods. Not much information is available regarding the wooden ball period, but it is pretty safe to imagine that a wooden ball would have had some interesting playing characteristics. I doubt you could "one hop and stop it."




The Feathery















The first "real" golf ball was known as a "feathery". The feathery was a leather sack filled by hand with boiled goose feathers, and stitched up and painted. They were expensive to make, easily damaged and only the privileged could afford them. It took a bucket of boiled goose feathers to make a single ball. A skilled ball maker could only produce about four of them in a day, and it was virtually impossible to make a truly round ball. A player may have gotten two rounds out of a feathery ball, but if it got wet, it would come apart. It is hard to imagine being able to keep one dry for long on the Scottish links.


The feather golf ball period may have started as early as the 1400's and ended in the early 1850’s. For four hundred years they were all that there was. In today's world that is absolutely amazing longevity.

The Gutty














The arrival of the gutta percha ball, or "gutty" as it was called, revolutionized the game and allowed its spread to the masses. The gutty was made from rubber which could be heated and formed into a ball. The gutty period lasted from 1848 until the late 1890’s. A mere blink of an eye when compared to the feathery, but it had a much greater impact on the game by being an affordable, playable and durable ball.



The first gutty balls were made by hand and formed smooth until it was discovered that brand new guttys had more of a tendency to duck than the ones that had been scuffed up from play. Hence the practice of nicking the balls with a hammer to put dimples in them began. Dimples were incorporated into the iron molds that followed. Less paint was also discovered to be beneficial, and paint application was reduced from three to two coats.

Early Rubber Core















The more modern rubber core ball replaced the gutty in 1899. However, they did not meet with immediate success. Players complained that while they were longer off of the tee they were too lively on and around the greens. Once Walter Travis won the US amateur championship while playing one, the gutty soon became obsolete.

Exhaustive testing has been done with different cores. A small sac of water was substituted for the rubber core at one time. Steel, lead and glycerin were all tried. Eventually most manufacturers all settled on one form of rubber or another. The composition of the rubber used is a closely guarded trade secret. Rubber thread was wound around the rubber core as tightly as possible and a cover of Balata was applied.


Modern Ball















Today's two- and three-piece solid Syrlin covered balls are are more durable than Balata. They are longer and straighter as well. These balls now provide the distance needed and added spin for control.