20 Things You Didn’t Know About Golf Balls

• Some of the earliest golf balls, called featherines, were made from boiled feathers packed into leather pouches. A hat full of feathers would be compressed to produce a single featherine.

• The resin of the Sapodilla tree made an important contribution to the evolution of the golf ball. This substance, also known as gutta-percha, was used to make rubber like balls called gutties.

• Gutties would melt when placed in boiling water. This made them extremely economical as damaged balls could be melted down and rolled back into shape.

• Before golf ball manufacturers began using dimples for golf ball design, balls were covered in circular bumps.

• Dimples were introduced to golf balls to provide greater lift and carry.

• There are 336 dimples in a regulation golf ball.

• A high performance golf ball can have up to 432 dimples.

• The most dimples ever recorded for a golf ball was 1,070!

• Modern golf balls comprise anywhere from two to five layers of synthetic materials.

• A golf ball may not weigh more than 1.620 ounces.

• A golf ball is only in contact with the golf club for 1 millisecond. This means that the average professional golfer at a major championship spends less than half a second striking the ball during the course of a 4 round tournament.

• More than $600 million a year is spent on golf balls in the United States alone.

• Rudyard Kipling painted golf balls red so that he could use them to play snow golf – a game he invented.

• If a golf ball can travel faster than 250 feet per second in testing, it is considered illegal by the United States Golfers Association.

• There is an entire industry built around trick and novelty golf balls used by golfers to play practical jokes on their opponents.

• One variety of novelty ball, the staller, can travel backwards if hit with enough force.

• Some golf balls are fitted with RFID chips to assist golfers in tracking down lost balls.

• A dirty golf ball can significantly affect a golfer’s game due to changes in the aerodynamic properties of the ball.

• Golf balls lost in water hazards or the rough and that are subsequently recovered are re-sold under four different quality ratings. The highest rating is a golf ball that is likely to have been struck only once.

• The fastest golf ball speed recorded off a golf stroke is 204 miles per hour!

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