LIVELIER GOLF BALL IS THE AIM OF LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 198, 24 August 1935, Page 4

LIVELIER GOLF BALL IS THE AIM OF LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS

Not so many years from now this «cene may bo enacted. It is pictured on a golf course with the modern trend advanced to the ultra-modern without the bother of waiting for the years to pass, states a writer in the Monitor. An excitable gallery scrambled unceremoniously toward the 121 h “Slugger” Ryan and “Pop-fly” Casey arc matched in a golf game where tee shots feature. Eight hundred and eighty yards to the 12th green, a short hole on futuristic courses. Modernised golf balls are in use and. by comparison, baseball's lively ball has become a 16-pound shot. The golf ball of the futuristic age evidently will enjoy an unprecedented coast through the breezy stratosphere and a glide to a perfect three-point landing, almost beyond vision from the take-off. The two heroes waited for the multitude to be cleared from the long narrow fairway, frantically patrolled by marshals. The radio news commentator pattered steadily with burning verbal tributes to the two “greats.” The rumbling voices of the crowd graded to a hushed murmur and then silence. The scorer’s bass voice boomed a thunderous “fore” down the 880yard fairway. The drives were about to take place. Ryan is up. He tees his ball, but its rolls lazily over. Straightening, Ryan hastily turned to his caddy and beseechingly cried, “Quick. Watson, the needle.” The poor old ball, subjected to the needle injection, began to vibrate and quiver furiously. Again teeing the jittery ball “Slugger” wound up and wham! “Ahs” and “Ohs” awaited sight of the ball and minutes later it dropped to the edge of the green 850 yards away. Ryan grinned gleefully. “Pop-fly” surveyed the scene confidently. He called for his No. 3 ball and immersed it in a bottle of milk. The club did not matter. Carefully wiping the shiny and jumpy ball, he stroked it to quiet. After teeing he look a short easy back swing and lofted the little white agate quickly out of sight. Craned necks watched with bated breath. Its high hum became audible again and then sight of it. and plop! “Pop-fly’s” ball dropped right beside ‘‘Slugger’s” ponderous thump. The manufacturers

glared at each other. The distance was even again, and again the game went on uninterestingly until the next tee shots. Exaggeration, of course, but the golf manufacturers are doing pretty well acebrding to publicity and advertising. The dim dark ages saw crude balls of homespun ingenuity. First the leather-covered ball, followed by the gutta percha ball. Then came experiments with wound balls. Recently the large ball replaced the small one and distance receded; but. they are at it again and the short hitters are promised good distance by every effort of the manufacturers’ high-salaried scientifically trained inventors. Along came the highly-publicised Spalding Kro-Flitc, the dry ice centre golf ball known as the Macgjefcor Pace-Maker, the Burbank Streamline, the Hagen “Honey Boy,” a centre filled with honey; the modulated liquidcentre ball named after Helen Hicks and now the United States Rubber Company’s “milk-fed” affair, all to cat up distance. The last-named contribution -is the spun latex ball made direct from liqtu«. latex, the natural milk of the rubber tree. 'The centres of all these put together would make an unpalatable concoction of prohibitive beef stew. The most important feature of tne “milk-fed” balj is claimed to be its high-power winding of thread spun from the very essence of rubber-latex.' A secret, exclusive process spins this pure, liquid energy into a continuous uniform thread which is stronger and more resilient than any thread previously made, according to the manufacturer. The new centre, a sac of pure latex filled with a liquid of permanent consistency, and wound with the new power thread. Then the cover material was discovered in Java, called Tjipetir and they claim much will come of it. Like the “needled” ball much experimenting accompanies the perfection. Any golfer will admit putting to be the important stroke in golf and approach shots vital, but who i-. there among those playing golf who does not like to “smack” the ball over 200 yards down the fairway? It is Io that uncontrollable wish of* all golfers that the manufacturers are catering and probably their efforts eventually will revolutionise the game.