Balls

Balls: Golf is a ball game. So undoubtedly, ball is essential equipment for the sport. In the early days of the game, the balls used were mainly made from wood. Later during the seventeenth century, the “featherie” ball came into use. In this type of ball, feather was stuffed in a leather cover. The special characteristic of the ball was that the leather cover was sewed by hand. Till the nineteenth century, these featherie balls were very popular among the players for the extra flight. Since the 1850s, the ball, which has been used during the golf tournaments, is known as the “guttie” or the “gutta percha” ball. The golf balls were revolutionized with the advent of the multi-layer balls in the htwentieth century.

The first advanced golf ball was a two piece ball. In the core of the ball, there was a piece of rubber together with gutta percha. Later, to make the golf balls more stable, the surfaces of the balls were made pitted or dimpled. The modern golf balls have the cover made of Surlyn, a kind of synthetic resin. The cores of the balls are made from rubber. Nowadays, even titanium compounds are being used to make the ball cores. The balls are usually designed with two, three or four layers.

The modern golf balls generally weigh 45.93 gram. The diameter of the standard golf ball is 42.67 millimeter or 1.680 inches. The balls generally have numerous dimples on the covers. The number of dimples varies between 300 and 450. The leading manufacturers of golf balls are Callaway, Bridgestone, Titleist, Maxfli, Nike, Pinnacle, Srixon, Topflite, Wilson and Taylor Made.