Golf-ball development

The early gutta-percha balls had smooth, painted surfaces and poor flight characteristics. Makers began adding hammered or molded patterns. Changing the surface was therefore a separate development from changing the substance of the ball.¹

A later construction is recorded precisely in U.S. patent 622,834. Bertram G. Work and Coburn Haskell applied in August 1898; the patent was granted in April 1899. It describes rubber thread wound under tension, enclosed by gutta-percha or a substitute cover.²

Solid construction has its own chronology. A USGA technical notice places the modern solid ball in 1967 and multilayer examples in 1968. These dates describe construction changes, separate from the earlier use of a solid gutta-percha ball.³

The Pro V1 is one later example of a multilayer design. Titleist’s account of its 2000 introduction describes a solid core and cast urethane cover. It shows why a ball’s date, core, intermediate layers and cover deserve separate descriptions.⁴