THE GOLF BALL
It is remarkable, when one considers the vast number of scientific men
who play golf, how little attention has been directed by them to the
form and make of the golf ball. Many golfers are under the impression
that the golf ball which is now used represents the limit of man's
inventive genius. Probably the leading maker of the best feather ball
in the days before the gutta-percha ball was known would have thought
the same. As a matter of ascertained fact the vast majority of golf
balls which are made to-day are imperfect in a variety of ways. There
can be no doubt whatever that the ball which is marked by what are
commonly called pimples, or bramble marking, is a most imperfect
production.
If one were to suggest to a billiard player that it would improve the
run of the balls if they were covered with little excrescences similar
to those which are on many golf balls, he would be pitied or
maltreated, yet Mid-Surrey greens are not many removes from a billiard
table, and putting is quite half the game of golf, as I think has been
remarked by a great number of people, but is nevertheless not
sufficiently considered by golfers, especially in the matter of
choosing golf balls.
It is not necessary, in considering the question of the golf ball, to
bore people, as is usually done, with the history of the evolution of
the golf ball, from the time when prehistoric men used a knuckle bone
or something like that, right down through the feather ball period up
to the present time. It will not be necessary for me to go back any
further than the period of the gutta-percha ball. Most golfers will
remember that the guttie was not a perfectly smooth ball; it was
marked with grooved lines running round it. These crossed each other
at various angles, producing, generally speaking, squares, although,
naturally, some of the markings, where the lines did not cross at
right angles, were irregular, but the principle of the marking was by
indentation.
The bramble marking, or marking by excrescence, is an idea which has
obtained a hold more recently, and it is certain, from a practical and
scientific point of view, that it is a very imperfect marking.
It is a curious thing that in golf, where a very great amount of
accuracy is demanded, particularly when one is playing a short put on
a fiery green, the ball should be, so far as I am aware, the only ball
which is deliberately constructed on principles which if applied to a
billiard ball would make the ball what billiard players call "foul,"
that is, a ball which runs untruly.
It is unquestionable that sufficient thought has not been given to
this matter. Very few people understand that it is practically
impossible to place a ball with bramble markings on a perfectly true
surface so that it will remain in the exact place where it was put,
even if it were deposited on this spot by mechanical means. It is not
hard to understand that this is natural when we remember that a golf
ball which is marked by the excrescences called pimples or brambles
comes to rest on a tripod of excrescences, and indeed it sometimes
requires to find a base of four of these excrescences before it
settles down.
Any thinking golfer will be able to understand very easily that this
must make for instability, and he will see clearly what it means when
a ball is rolling very slowly. Let us imagine, for instance, that a
golfer is playing an approach put of twenty yards. It is evident that
while the main force of the blow is behind the ball it will enable it
to overcome much of the untrueness of the ball, but it is equally
apparent that as the force is dying away at the critical time when one
wishes the ball to run truly on its course to the hole, it is most
prone to waver. It is at times like this that the golfer blames the
"beastly green," whereas if he knew as much as he should about the
make of a golf ball he would know that he had only himself to thank
for playing with such an extremely imperfect thing as the golf ball
which is marked by excrescences.
It is of course clear that on a putting-green the ball with
excrescences sinks into the turf, and whilst it is running with any
considerable force behind it, it makes for itself what may be termed a
trough to run in, which is equivalent in depth practically to the hole
which the ball would make when lying at rest on the green. This is the
only thing which saves the ball marked with excrescences from being a
much worse failure than it is. It is, however, when one comes to put
with it over a hard, keen, or bare green that its wonderful
imperfection is shown.
Many golfers, on account of the fact that an ordinary putting-green
does assist this imperfect ball to this extent, are inclined to
maintain that the ball is sufficient for the needs of golf. They
forget, of course, that a ball with these excrescences must
necessarily be more inaccurate off the face of the putter than would
be a ball marked by indentation, for when a ball is marked by
indentation, either of the dimple pattern, which has come into vogue
more recently, or of the lines which were used in the old days, it
undoubtedly will run more truly than if marked by excrescences, for
the reason that the indentation is bridged in such a manner that it is
not felt to the same extent as is an excrescence.
I may illustrate this by applying the marking of an old guttie to a
billiard ball. Let us consider for a moment that the billiard ball has
been marked by having lines sawn in it similar to those on a
gutta-percha ball; these lines would not affect the trueness of the
running of a billiard ball to a very great extent. But let us, on the
other hand, imagine that instead of lines being sunk in the ball,
these lines had been put in a network on the ball, so that they were
raised from the surface of the billiard ball. It is obvious that such
a ball would be absolutely impossible, and it would be an extremely
foul-running ball.
There is another point to be considered in connection with this matter
of marking by indentation or by excrescences. It would be almost a
matter of impossibility to stand a ball marked by excrescences so that
it balanced on the point of one of the pimples. On the other hand it
would be perfectly natural for a ball marked by a dimple of
corresponding diameter to the base of the pimple, to come to rest on
the "ring" formed by that dimple. We have already seen that the ball
marked by excrescences requires three or four of those excrescences to
rest on before it becomes stationary. Roughly, therefore, the
instability of the ball marked by excrescences is at least three times
as great as that of the ball marked by indentation, and if we
contrast the ball marked by excrescences with the ball marked by the
old gutta-percha marking, the difference would probably be very much
greater against the bramble marking.
We have already seen that the putting-green assists, to a certain
extent, to make up for the defects of the ball with bramble marking,
but it must not be forgotten that although the putting-green does
this, the greater tendency to instability is there the whole time, and
must put the golfer who uses the bramble-marked ball at a
disadvantage.
Putting, especially near the hole, is a very delicate operation, and
it is apparent that in many cases the blow will be delivered on the
point of one of these excrescences. It is equally apparent that in
many cases that excrescence will not be in such a line with regard to
the putter that the force of the blow will pass clean through the
centre thereof, and also through the centre of the ball's mass in a
line to the hole. When it does not do this it is certain that there is
an element of inaccuracy introduced into the put (particularly the
short put) which the wise golfer will not have in his stroke, for not
only is the ball with excrescences more inaccurate off the face of the
putter, but it is, particularly for short puts and on keen greens,
much more inaccurate in its run than is the ball which is marked by
indentations.
This question of hitting one of the pimples of the golf ball might be
considered to be theoretical, but it is a matter of the most
absolutely practical golf, and I have seen the force of it exemplified
not only in golf, but in lawn-tennis. I must give here a very
interesting illustration of the point which I am making.
Some time ago a lawn-tennis racket was produced which had a knot at
the intersection of the strings. The idea of this knot was that it
would enable the racket to get a better grip on the ball, and so to
produce a much greater spin. This, to a certain extent, was correct.
There was no doubt that the racket did get a very good grip on the
ball, although personally, as a matter of practical lawn-tennis, I
never regarded the invention very seriously; but it was useful in
emphasising the point which I am now making with regard to the marking
by excrescences of the golf ball. It was found that when one attempted
to play delicate volleys with this racket that it was impossible to
regulate the direction, for the simple reason that the ball, on many
occasions, was struck by one of the knots on the racket, and this
frequently spoilt the direction of the stroke.
What happened with that racket and the lawn-tennis ball is what is
happening every day on hundreds of greens with the golf balls which
are marked by excrescences, and the golfer who is wise will have
nothing whatever to do with any ball which is marked otherwise than by
indentations.
It was in the year 1908 that I first put forward these ideas in an
article in _The Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette_. I had
written many articles which were of much greater importance to the
game from the scientific point of view, but this particular article
eclipsed them all in interest. I had started the idea that the golf
ball should be made much smoother than it was at that time, and for
four months the controversy as to the merits of the rough ball or the
smoother raged. I caused the leading manufacturers of golf balls to be
interviewed. The manager of Messrs. A. G. Spalding & Bros., the
well-known manufacturers, gave it as his opinion that the idea was
perfectly ridiculous. He was quite convinced that the rough ball was
the better ball. The manager of another company was of opinion that
the smoother ball would not drive straight. Many of them traced this
to the fact that a smooth ball would not fly straight, but we were not
concerned with the question as to whether the smooth ball would fly
straight or not; golfers, generally, are well aware of the fact, and
even in 1908 were well aware of the fact, that a perfectly smooth ball
will not fly straight. The whole point of the discussion was to
ascertain if it would not be better to have a much smoother ball than
that with the bramble marking.
I was interested in having the opinion of the golf ball manufacturers,
for I have never thought that they have dealt with the matter in a
scientific manner. It seemed to me that the evolution of the marking
of the golf ball had been entirely haphazard, and it is, I believe,
still in the same condition, but it certainly shows some signs of
improving.
In order to put the matter beyond doubt I asked Mr. Rupert Ayres, of
the famous firm of F. H. Ayres, Ltd., to have made for me a golf ball
with an extremely fine marking; in fact I gave instructions for the
ball to be marked with what I considered the least possible
indentations which were likely to be serviceable. Mr. Ayres took a
very great amount of trouble in connection with this matter, and he
produced for me a ball similar, in all respects, to that which I
wanted, with the slight exception that the marking was finer than I
had desired. The result was that when the ball was painted the
interstices were filled up to a very considerable extent, so much so
indeed that I doubted if the ball was sufficiently marked to ensure
its flying correctly. I tried this ball at Hanger Hill, both
personally and by submitting it to a considerable number of drives by
George Duncan, and it always gave unsatisfactory results--indeed its
flight was so remarkable that it might well have been christened "the
butterfly." It zigzagged and soared and ducked in a most remarkable,
and to a very great extent, inexplicable manner.
I knew, of course, that what I had to do was to increase the
indentations a little in depth, for my object was to obtain the mean
between no marking whatever and the ridiculously exaggerated marking
by excrescences which is now so common, and my experiments were not in
the direction of obtaining any marking whatever by excrescences, for I
was following on the lines which were accidentally discovered by those
who found that the old feather balls, and particularly the
gutta-percha balls, flew better after they had been indented by the
golf clubs. My idea, therefore, was, starting from the least possible
indentation, to proceed by marking the ball more deeply and yet more
deeply until I found that it would fly as accurately as a ball marked
by excrescences.
Mr. Ayres helped me in my experiments with remarkable patience and
ability. I found that there are a hundred and one different markings,
all of which are practically of equal service in so far as regards
affecting the flight of the ball, but in every case I came to the
conclusion that the marking by indentation is the best. This led me to
get Mr. Ayres to produce for me a ball which he ultimately put on the
market under my name, which was marked in identically the same manner
as the old guttie. I believe "The Vaile" was the first rubber-cored
ball with the old guttie marking to be placed on the market, and this
marking was found to be satisfactory in every respect. The ball, as
indeed one might imagine, both flew and ran perfectly, but it was met
by golfers with a strange objection. They said it was too much like
the old guttie. Personally, I did not care what they said about it. I
had not caused the ball to be made from any commercial interest I had
in the matter.
It had been stated that a ball marked like this would not be so good
for golf as a ball marked with excrescences. I had proved beyond a
shadow of doubt that the ball was better for golf than the ball which
was marked by excrescences, and I was content to leave it at that,
although as a matter of fact later on Messrs. Ayres did produce for me
a ball with a more distinctive marking which gave us equally good
results in so far as regards flight and run, but which I did not like
nearly so well as the old guttie marking.
At the time this ball was produced I stated emphatically that I
believed that the result of the agitation and discussion would be to
knock the pimples off the golf ball. This statement was, of course,
ridiculed by the makers of golf balls, and quite wisely too, for they
had tens of thousands of pimply golf balls which they had to dispose
of, and it was not their business to agree with my ideas of altering
the make of the golf ball until they had disposed of their stock. They
have, however, now no prejudice whatever in the matter, and the
leading manufacturers both here and in America are pushing balls which
are marked by indentation. They certainly were a long time after my
manufacturers in realising the importance of the principle, but they
are now endeavouring to make up for lost time. One firm, Messrs. A. G.
Spalding & Bros., is pushing three balls as their leading lines. These
are the Glory Dimple, the Midget Dimple, and the Domino Dimple. All
these balls are what are now called dimple balls, and they meet with
great favour in many quarters, although there are still a number of
golfers who swear by the bramble-marking.
During the course of this long controversy I suggested that it would
be a good idea if the balls which were marked by excrescences and
those which were marked by indentations were subjected to a test by
being mechanically propelled. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, the famous
wild-fowler and author of _The Projectile Throwing Engines of the
Ancients_, wrote to me and very kindly volunteered to carry out the
experiment if I would send him the balls I wished him to test. I
naturally accepted his very kind offer, and sent him a variety of golf
balls to be tested. Sir Ralph is the possessor of some very remarkable
catapults built on the principles of the old Roman engines of war, and
with these he conducted a series of experiments, which were so
interesting that they deserve to be permanently recorded for the
benefit of future generations. His conclusions were published in two
articles which occupied about three columns of _The Times_, and they
are of such an instructive nature that I propose to quote somewhat
fully from them.
Sir Ralph showed quite clearly that in a very great number of cases
the centre of gravity of the ball is untrue. Quite a number of golfers
would think that it is not a matter of very great importance if the
centre of gravity of a golf ball is untrue. Anyone who thinks this may
speedily undeceive himself by a small experiment suggested by Sir
Ralph. Let him cut a hole in the side of a golf ball, insert a piece
of lead or half a dozen shot and fill the hole up with wax or soap and
then put with that ball. He will be astonished to find what a peculiar
course it takes.
Of course, not many golf balls are loaded like this, but it is beyond
any doubt whatever that in many cases the gutta-percha covering of
the rubber-core is of very uneven thickness. This in itself and quite
apart from the defect of marking by excrescences which I have already
referred to, is sufficient to account for the very bad running of many
golf balls.
I may say, too, that I believe this untrueness of the centre of
gravity is responsible for the double swerve which one frequently sees
in a truly hit golf ball. A swerve which is obtained from the
application of spin to the golf ball, almost invariably is continuous
and in the one direction, but I have frequently seen well-hit drives
by the most famous players swerve to the right, back again to the left
and resume their original course. This has happened with such perfect
regularity in many cases that there must unquestionably be a definite
reason for it, apart from rotation applied by contact with the club,
and the only explanation which I can give of it in any way at all is
that it is caused by an untrue centre.
The shape, resiliency, and centre of gravity of the golf ball are of
vital importance to the player, but the golfer accepts all these
matters with a blind faith which is touching in the extreme. A golfer
should not accept from a golf ball manufacturer a ball which is not
truly spherical, or one which does not fly truly when truly hit, but
as a matter of fact almost fifty per cent of the golf balls supplied
by the leading makers come within this category. One may take fifty
golf balls of any specific sort, and test these for shape, centre of
gravity, and weight, and it is an even chance that twenty-five of them
will be quite different from the other twenty-five.
It is very easy indeed to test the rubber-cored balls as regards the
correctness of their centre of gravity. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey found
that none of the rubber-cored balls was correct as to its centre of
gravity, though some were much more incorrect than others, and he
found that not one of them was truly spherical in shape. I may say
that in a large number of cases I have verified his experiments. Sir
Ralph Payne-Gallwey's method of testing them for correctness of centre
of gravity is so simple that I may give it here for the benefit of any
player who desires to see that he is getting a ball which will serve
him truly in so far as regards this important particular.
Sir Ralph placed the ball which he desired to test in a basin of water
and waited until it came to rest. When the ball had come to rest,
there was naturally a small portion of it protruding from the water.
Sir Ralph marked the centre of this spot with a pencil dot and he
found that however carelessly he put the same ball into the water,
however much it was rolled about, that the portion of the ball marked
with the pencil dot always came upwards out of the water again, and
that the actual spot with the pencil mark on it always came to exactly
the same place. It was evident from this that the centre of gravity of
the balls tested in this manner was considerably untrue.
Sir Ralph found, as might be expected, that the old guttie ball was
much truer as regards its centre of gravity than the rubber-cored
balls. He tested the gutta-percha ball and the miniature ball which
would not float in plain water, in a solution of salt and water.
The experiments which he conducted in connection with these balls were
really quite exhaustive. He found that with some of the balls,
especially the smaller ones, the dot appeared in two seconds, while
some of the others took from four to six seconds to come upward. He
arrived at a comparative idea of the error in centre of gravity by
placing the dot downwards in the water, and then noting with a
stop-watch the time occupied by it in appearing out of the water on
top of the ball. He thus took the time in each case from the moment of
release to the moment that the pencil dot again came uppermost, and by
these means he obtained as accurately as he could with a stop-watch
the comparative error of one ball with another in regard to its centre
of gravity.
The testing of the balls for true spherical shape was, of course,
easy, and was done by means of callipers. It can be done either by
callipers or by a parallel vice which may be opened just wide enough
to allow a ball to be passed between its jaws. If one has not a vice
or callipers available, it is, of course, easy to cut a circle in a
piece of cardboard and gradually increase the size of the circle until
a ball will just get through. The circle, of course, must be made
truly, but this can easily be done by a pin and a string if compasses
are not available.
Of course, it would be advisable in testing a golf ball through a ring
such as this to obtain in the first case a ball which is as near a
true sphere as any rubber-cored ball can be. This may be done by
fixing any two objects in a similar position to that suggested for the
jaws of a vice, as for instance the opening of a drawer. One may open
a drawer and fix the drawer firmly so that the ball can just pass in
at the opening. Once this is done, it is almost as effectual as either
callipers or the jaws of a vice.
Sir Ralph found that the gutties were as near true spheres as
possible, and also that these balls showed very slight error in centre
of gravity. This, of course, from the solidity of the matter and their
original formation in the mould might naturally have been expected,
for in the nature of the modern ball it stands to reason that its
centre of gravity could never be so consistent as that of a ball which
is made entirely in the one piece as was the old gutta-percha ball.
Sir Ralph has some remarkable projectile engines which gave him
exceptional facilities for testing the flight of the golf balls which
I sent him. He has one engine which weighs about two tons and is
capable of casting a stone ball of twelve pounds a distance of a
quarter of a mile. The catapult which he used for the purpose is a
small reproduction of this big engine. His small model of this engine
weighs about forty pounds and will pitch a golf ball from 180 to 200
yards, the distance of course depending upon the amount of tension
used and the angle of elevation.
The power of the engine is obtained from twisted cord, and the arm of
the machine used by Sir Ralph is two feet eight inches long, and is
provided with a cup at its upper end to hold the ball. It is so
arranged that the balls can be thrown any intermediate distance
required up to 200 yards, and at any elevation. Sir Ralph conducted
experiments with balls thrown by the catapult, and also with balls hit
away by it in a manner similar to a golf club, and, as might be
expected, no spin whatever was imparted to the ball. It was thrown in
a straight line every time with unvarying accuracy, and there was not
the slightest sign whatever of slice, pull, or cut. This, of course,
is exactly what one who knows the principle of the catapult would
expect.
Sir Ralph found, however, that the accuracy of flight of the ball was
very remarkable, and he gives as an instance the fact that a ball
which had been marked as having a particularly accurate flight was
pitched twenty times in succession within a few feet of a stick stuck
in the ground 180 yards from the machine.
It is interesting to note the weights of the balls used in these
experiments. They varied from 22 drachms to 23 drachms avoirdupois,
and their diameters from 53 to 54 thirty-seconds of an inch. The
guttie ball used by Sir Ralph weighed 24-1/2 drachms, and one of the
miniature balls 24 drachms 6 grains. Sir Ralph threw a dozen balls of
various makes from his small engine at a mark 160 yards distant, and
he threw each ball twenty times before another was tried. He employed
a fore-caddie to mark the indentations each ball made where it fell. A
peg was put in at the spot where each ball landed, and these distances
were all subsequently measured, and the records kept for purposes of
comparison.
After this had been done with one ball the same was done with another,
and it is almost unnecessary to say that the angle of elevation and
the force used in each case was the same. Sir Ralph found that in
propelling the balls with the wind there was very little difference in
the length of carry or the steadiness of the flight, though, as might
have been expected, the guttie beat all of them in distance, being six
times in its first series of twenty throws a few yards farther than
the longest carry made by any of the other balls. This, of course, was
quite natural, for the old guttie was heavier, harder, a more correct
sphere and more correctly marked than the ball which is now in common
use. Therefore it was quite reasonable to expect that it would go
farther when propelled from the catapult. It is, of course, just as
easy to understand that this superiority would not exist when the
ball was struck with a golf club, for then the question of resiliency
comes into the matter.
It is interesting to note that Sir Ralph found that the miniature golf
ball more nearly approximated to the guttie than to the rubber-cored
balls. The miniature being harder and heavier than the other
rubber-cores, when thrown by the engine gave the longest flight of all
the rubber-cores, although it did not get so far as the guttie. Its
superiority, however, when struck from the engine in a manner as
nearly as possible resembling the blow with a golf club, was
non-existent, and its carry was then found to be the shortest of all
the rubber-cores, and the guttie ball was, when hit away by the
machine, shorter yet than the miniature golf ball.
Sir Ralph found, as I had confidently asserted would be the case, that
against the wind the balls with the roughest markings always carried
the shortest distance, and that they tended to rise too much in their
flight. This was most apparent at about two-thirds of the carry. Sir
Ralph found that there was a distinct difference in this matter of
soaring between the very roughly marked balls and those which were a
little less so. He proved to demonstration the fact which I had
confidently maintained, that the less roughly marked balls, owing to
the small amount of air friction which they set up, and naturally in
consequence thereof, their lower parabola, always carried farther
against the wind.
I have referred elsewhere to Harry Vardon's remark about not
attempting to regulate the flight of the ball in a cross wind, or
indeed, for the matter of that, in any other wind by applying spin to
it. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's experiment put this matter beyond a
shadow of doubt, so that we may be absolutely certain that the idea of
trying to slice against a wind to get a straight ball, or to pull into
a wind to get an extra run, is for ninety-five per cent of players not
practical golf. Sir Ralph found that with a fresh side wind from the
left, all the balls, except the guttie, landed from eight to twelve
yards to the right of the mark at a range of 130 yards. He states
emphatically that in this case it was clearly shown that the more
roughly marked balls consistently showed the greatest deviation from
the correct line of flight. We have, however, gained a very strong
argument in favour of the ball with the less pronounced marking.
Sir Ralph also discovered another thing which is of very great
importance indeed to the practical golfer, but a thing which is not
considered in the slightest degree by one golfer in ten thousand, and
that is that the balls which were most untrue in regard to their
centre of gravity, not only always dropped the farthest to the right,
that is, were most affected by the cross wind, but that they also ran
at a more acute angle in the same direction after contact with the
ground. Thus we see that in 130 yards the most roughly-marked ball in
a cross wind is deflected twelve yards. We see also that this ball was
the one which was most incorrect as regards its centre of gravity. We
therefore have a specimen of the worst ball which could be used for
this purpose being carried twelve yards off its line, and we may
reasonably take this to be the extreme of error for that distance.
It is easy to understand when we consider such an illustration as this
what a tremendous handicap the golfer is suffering from when he uses
the ball which allows the wind to get such a grip of it as the
bramble-marked ball does, and moreover one with a centre of gravity
which is so bad that it assists the work of the wind in carrying the
ball away as it does, and not only assists the wind to this extent,
but even carries its vices to the extent of still further fighting
against the player by exaggerating its error when it lands by running
away from the line.
These are all bad enough, but we must remember that there is also to
be considered the error which is unquestionably a matter to be
reckoned with, which inevitably takes place when the ball marked by
excrescences is struck by a club.
I had sent Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey the ball which I had had made for
experimental purposes with very slight marking, and he was good enough
to experiment with this for me. He says of it: "This ball was quite
smooth, as smooth indeed as a billiard ball, the idea being that
having no markings on its outside it would not present so frictional a
surface to the air in its flight, as a ball with markings, and that
being without this it would also be very accurate from the putter. I
tried this smooth ball from the engine, and it 'ducked' every time in
an extraordinary manner, its length of carry being seldom more than
eighty yards."
Sir Ralph is most accurate, generally speaking, but he is in error by
stating that this ball is as smooth as a billiard ball. The ball which
I sent Sir Ralph was called by me "The Ruff," merely as a distinctive
name, for it was the nearest approach to a perfectly smooth ball that
I could make. It is evident from Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's description
of it that it is, as compared with the golf balls now in use, very
smooth, but it is pitted all over with remarkably small indentations
so that it appears to be chased, but, as I explained, the paint to a
certain extent covered up the interstices so as to prevent the ball
giving me the test which I expected to get from it. It is, however,
not accurate to say that this ball is perfectly smooth.
It is obvious that from this I was trying to work to the mean which I
felt perfectly certain existed between the old golf ball, whose
erratic flight was well known, and the modern golf ball with its
exaggerated marking.
Sir Ralph thought that the form of this ball might not, for some
unknown reason, suit a projectile engine. He continues:
... and as I could not drive it further than about eighty
yards with a golf club, I engaged the well-known
professional, Edward Ray, to play a round of the green with
this ball at Ganton. As Ray is an exceptionally long and
accurate player with driver and cleek I felt the ball would
have a fair chance of going, if it could go. From the first
tee the ball did not carry a hundred yards, though, to all
appearances, struck clean and hard. I thought that for once
in a way Ray had missed his drive, but as the same thing
occurred from every tee and through the green for the next
six holes, there was no disputing that a smooth ball was
quite useless for golf.
I then proceeded to nick the ball slightly with the point of
a knife, spacing the small raised nicks about one-third of an
inch apart, the ball being still a very smooth one in
comparison to any of the usual kinds. After this slight
alteration the ball flew splendidly, whether off wood or iron
clubs, neither too high nor too low, but quite straight, and
with the very slight rise towards the end of its carry that
is the essence of perfect flight in a golf ball, some of the
carries when measured from the tee being well over two
hundred yards.
Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey continues that when he returned home he shot
this ball from the small engine, and it then several times
out-distanced the best records made by any of the balls previously
tested. After this he chipped up many more little raised nicks on the
same smooth ball as a further experiment, but he then found that this
not only reduced its length of flight by several yards, but also
caused it to soar too much upwards when projected against a head wind
as is the case with the ordinary rough-marked golf ball.
It will be seen here that Sir Ralph continued with the ball sent by me
to him, the experiment, which I had started, as it was my intention to
proceed from a ball as nearly as could be, smooth, towards the present
exaggerated ball, by the least possible steps, so that the moment that
I had arrived at a ball so marked that it would not give me any extra
carry, I should desist at once.
Sir Ralph's summing up is as follows. He says: "From such practical
tests it is evident that the surface of a golf ball is far too rough,
and that it would fly with more accuracy and farther, especially with
a head or a side wind, had it much less numerous and prominent
markings on its cover." This is exactly what I contended for in my
original article on the subject, and it is exactly what has to be
realised by the makers of the golf ball of the future. Many of the
balls which are now being produced with the dimple marking are moving
in the right direction, but they still have the grave errors of bad
centre of gravity and excessive marking. When these two matters have
been adjusted we shall have a very much better ball.
It will be interesting now to refer to the results which Sir Ralph
Payne-Gallwey obtained when he fitted his catapult with an arm
provided with an enlarged head similar in shape to the head of a golf
driver. Sir Ralph says:
This striking arm hit the ball away just as it is hit by a
golf club. The ball I suspended by gossamer silk from the
projecting beam of a little gallows fixed over the engine,
and so positioned that the enlarged upper end of the arm
struck the ball fair and true and with its full force and at
the same angle every time.
I was not present when Sir Ralph made these experiments. He, however,
was kind enough to send me a copy of his most interesting work
entitled _The Projectile Throwing Engines of the Ancients_. This book
gives many illustrations of the catapults used by the Romans and
others.
I find it somewhat difficult to follow Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey when he
says: "This striking arm hit the ball away just as it is hit by a golf
club," for it seems to me that as the ball was suspended above the
striking face of the club which was fixed to the upper end of the arm,
that the arc described by the arm of the catapult would be exactly
opposite to that described by the head of the golf club, and it is of
course conceivable that this would in some way affect the carry of
golf balls struck by the machine in this manner.
I need not, however, go into that here, for whatever the results
obtained by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey were each ball was hit in exactly
the same manner, and therefore we have, in so far as regards distance
and the effect of the side wind, fairly accurate comparative tests.
Sir Ralph says: "Though I could not obtain the same length of carry by
making the engine strike the ball as I could when the ball was thrown
by it--not by about fifteen yards--yet the individual results in
distance and in deviation with a side wind exactly corresponded with
the behaviour of the various balls when they were thrown and when
carries of from 180 to 200 yards were obtained from them."
Sir Ralph found that in this experiment the carry of the guttie was
invariably about eighteen yards shorter than that of the ordinary
rubber-cored balls. He therefore carried out an interesting experiment
by fixing a pad of rubber on the face of the head of the arm, and the
guttie, when struck by this, travelled as far as any of the balls. He
found, as I have previously indicated, that of the rubber-cored balls
the small one carried the shortest distance when struck by the engine,
and he found also that its length of flight was not increased by using
the rubber pad. This, of course, is what we might have expected.
There is one very interesting matter which Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey
notes. He says: "Another curious thing, the ball with the most untrue
centre of gravity usually made one, and occasionally even two, swerves
in the air when hit against the wind, though this eccentricity in its
line of flight was less noticeable when it was thrown from the
engine." This is a very interesting statement to anyone who devotes
attention to the flight of the ball, and it goes very far indeed to
confirm my own impression that the double swerve of the golf ball
which I have noticed so frequently, is produced by defective centre of
gravity.
[Illustration: PLATE XIV. J. SHERLOCK
Top of swing in iron-shot. Note the position of the ball, and
the upright swing of the club.]
These experiments are of very great value, and should be carefully
noted by golf ball makers, but Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey was not content
with testing the golf balls for their flight. After having put in
several days doing this, and having fired fully 500 shots, he
continued his experiments with these balls with the object of
ascertaining their relative merits on the putting-green. He says:
I obtained a piece of lead three-quarters of an inch thick,
two inches wide, and three feet long, in which I cut a
straight and smooth groove one inch wide. One end of this
piece of lead I rested on the cushion at the baulk end of a
billiard table, and directed its other end towards the spot
on which the red ball is placed in the game of billiards.
The forward end of the grooved lead I tapered off so that a
ball ran evenly and smoothly from the groove on to the table
without any drop or deviation as it left the piece of lead,
which from its weight, when once set, could not change its
position. I now placed a thimble on the spot at the far end
of the table and rolled an accurately-turned wooden ball the
same size as a golf ball down the sloping groove. After a
little adjustment of the lead piece its line of fire was
correct, and I was able to knock the thimble off the spot
fifty times in succession. The ball travelled with sufficient
speed just to reach the cushion beyond the thimble when the
latter was moved aside, and the shot at the thimble nicely
represented a slow put of eight feet in length.
This is a most interesting way of testing the golf ball. I may say
that I have myself carried out experiments on similar lines, and that
the results which I obtained practically confirm the accuracy of those
which Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey got. He found that on testing various
golf balls the results were widely different. He tried each ball
several times in a series of twenty tries at the thimble. He found
that individually they seldom hit it more than three or four times in
a series, and that some of the balls, particularly those which he had
found to be incorrect so far as regards their centre of gravity,
rolled away from the thimble as much as two feet to the right or left,
and that they sometimes actually went into the corner pockets of the
table. This would seem to be incredible, but I can vouch for the
accuracy of Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's statements.
It is an amazing thing to think of, but it is perfectly true, that the
modern golf ball is so badly constructed that in a straight roll down
the middle of the table such as that described by Sir Ralph
Payne-Gallwey, the ball will absolutely roll as far off the line as
the corner pockets, and indeed sometimes farther even than this. That
is what the golfer has to contend with when he tries to put with a
bramble ball on a golf green, but, of course, as he does not know it,
he blames himself for an off day, or the green for being "beastly,"
but he never by any chance whatever gives a thought to his horribly
defective golf ball.
Sir Ralph says that the guttie was a notable exception to the
inaccuracy of the rubber cores. He found that in its different series
of twenty tries it often struck the thimble from fourteen to fifteen
times, and when it missed was usually within an inch of the mark. This
shows clearly the wonderful difference which I have already emphasised
between marking by indentation and marking by excrescence. Sir Ralph
also emphasises a point to which I had already directed attention as
to the ball marked by excrescences running truly when hit hard. It is
when the ball has no great propulsive force behind it that its
inherent vice is most surely shown. Sir Ralph says:
Any of the balls if played fairly hard from a cue could be
made to strike the thimble every time; but then such a hard
hit ball would go far beyond the hole in golf, and probably
overrun the putting green! The smooth billiard-table cloth
may be taken to represent the hard, bare and fast putting
green of a dry summer.
That is a very fair comparison, with the exception that the hard, bare
and fast putting-green of a dry summer would present infinitely
greater inaccuracies to the already sufficiently inaccurate golf ball
than would the billiard table. Let the unthinking golfer ruminate a
little on this subject, and the day is not far distant when we shall
never see such a thing as an excrescence on a golf ball.
Sir Ralph was very ingenious and thorough in his experiments. He
desired to obtain the nearest possible approximation which he could to
a natural putting-green, so he stretched a strip of rough green baize
on the billiard table and tested the balls on this. He made a chalk
mark on which to place the thimble, and its distance from the lead
gutter was the same as in his other experiments. He then found that
the balls, with the exception of those which had been marked as having
their centre of gravity much out of place, ran with far greater
accuracy. Most of them hit the thimble from eight to ten times in
their individual series of twenty shots, but the guttie was, as usual,
an easy winner. Sir Ralph found that on the billiard table if the
balls were played fairly hard from a cue, although too hard for golf,
the thimble could be knocked over every time.
I consider that these experiments prove beyond a shadow of doubt, as I
personally never doubted, that the ordinary bramble-marked golf ball
will not run truly unless it has a considerable amount of force behind
it, and that for short puts, and particularly on anything like a fast
green, it is a most treacherous ball. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey says:
All this goes to prove that, although a ball may be of
inaccurate make, it keeps its line to near the end of its
course when hit hard along the ground, as for instance, in a
long running up approach to the hole from the edge of a
putting green. It is also clear that a ball with an incorrect
centre of gravity will very seldom run true off the putter if
the ground is hard, fast and smooth and the distance it is
required to travel is only a few feet. For this reason
manufacturers should consider the accuracy of a ball for
short puts--accuracy that can only be gained by making it a
perfect sphere with its centre of gravity in the exact centre
of the ball; for short puts must lose many more matches than
short drives.
As Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey truly says, with a badly balanced ball the
easiest of short puts may fail, especially on a downward slope, though
the player rarely suspects that his ball and not his skill is to
blame.
It is not, as I have already pointed out, only the question of the
badly balanced ball which is of such vital importance in short puts,
but it is the question of the untrue running of the ball marked by
excrescences; also there is the equally important matter, which I have
referred to, of the untrueness of the ball marked by excrescences in
coming off the face of the putter. I am firmly convinced that there is
no more perfect marking for a golf ball than that used for the old
guttie ball, that is a marking by indented lines, but even here I
believe that equally good results, both in flight and run, would be
obtained if the gutta-percha ball were marked in a similar manner but
with fewer lines.
Some of Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's conclusions are important. He
suggests that a golfer should carefully test a ball before using it in
an important match, and this is, unquestionably, from a scientific
point of view, a very sound and good suggestion. I have already
indicated his method of testing a ball for its centre of gravity, and
I have shown how the ball may be tested for its spherical shape. There
is no necessity to apply any test whatever to the ball in so far as
regards its marking. There is one maxim with regard to that--avoid
anything in the shape of a golf ball marked by excrescences.
Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's advice to golfers with regard to the balls
need not be given here in full, valuable as I believe it to be in the
main. But there is one matter which is worth repeating. He says:
Select a ball with as smooth a cover as you can find, for
though all golf balls require to be roughened in order to
steady their flight, those most deeply scored travel the
shortest distance, and are most affected by a head or side
wind.
This is very sound and important advice, and it should receive the
attention not only of golfers, but of the golf ball manufacturers, for
even those balls which are now marked by indentation are, in my
opinion, too freely marked, and I am inclined to think that the
dimples on the golf balls which are so marked, are, if anything, too
large and too frequent. I think it is extremely probable that the
balls which are so marked would fly and run better than they do now if
they were marked by lines as the old guttie was marked, but with fewer
of these lines. Probably if they were marked with one-third of the
number of lines which were used on the old guttie, we should have a
perfect flying and running ball.
Before closing this chapter on the make of the golf ball, it will be
interesting to refer once again to the results obtained by Sir Ralph
Payne-Gallwey when throwing the smooth ball from his machine and also
when having it driven by Edward Ray. He obtained results similar in
all respects to those which George Duncan and I obtained when trying
"The Ruff." It is very curious indeed that so far there have not been
any definite scientific experiments made to show exactly where the
serviceable degree of roughness ends and the prejudicial begins,
though much has certainly been done since I started the controversy
about the relative merits of a smoother ball.
Some golf ball makers have gone so far as to produce a dimple ball
with a small pimple in the dimple. This, in effect, reduced the dimple
to a ring, and these balls have been found to fly and run very well,
but all that has been so far done has been a matter of experiment, of
rule of thumb work. I do not think that there is a firm of golf ball
makers in England which is in possession of a proper mechanical
driver. We are assured that at least one firm in America is in
possession of such a machine, but so far as I am aware there is no
efficient machine of such a nature in England. This is very
remarkable, as with such a machine a firm of golf ball manufacturers
could obtain results which would probably give them a big advantage
over their competitors.
I was quite astonished to see it stated by a firm of golf ball makers
the other day that, although they were making a ball marked by
indentations, they had come to the conclusion after much experimenting
that the bramble pattern was the best for all-round excellence. In the
face of the remarkably conclusive experiments conducted by Sir Ralph
Payne-Gallwey, whose results I may say bore out up to the hilt
everything which I had said about the defective construction of the
golf ball, I should like to know how this manufacturer comes to the
conclusion that the bramble marking is the best.
One point which has not been made very strongly is that it was not
necessary for the old balls to be badly knocked about before they
would fly well. Comparatively little damage improved the flight of the
ball. This, in itself, should be sufficient to convince manufacturers
that they are still in many ways marking their balls excessively. It
is quite evident that no particular kind of marking is required on the
golf ball, although it is conceivable that a certain kind of marking
might possess some slight advantage over another. It would be
interesting if an exhaustive set of experiments on the lines of those
already conducted by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey could be carried out
under proper supervision by some eminent scientist or by a leading
firm of golf ball makers, or by some prominent paper interested in
golf. The matter would undoubtedly be of very great interest to
golfers generally, and would probably result in a great improvement of
the balls at present on the market.
The phenomenon of the uneven flight of the smooth golf ball has never,
so far as I am aware, been satisfactorily explained. We all know, of
course, that practically nothing which has not a tail flies well. A
tail is necessary for an arrow, for an aeroplane, for a bird to steer
itself with, and even the rifle bullet would not fly well until it
was, in effect, provided with a tail. It has always seemed to me that
there was a possibility of an explanation of the defective flight of
the smooth golf ball in this fact. It stands to reason that in the
passage of the ball through the atmosphere there is a considerable
compression of the air in front of the ball, and it is equally obvious
that this compressed air is, if we may so express it, flowing
backwards over the ball, and therefore running between the bramble
markings. Of course, we are aware that it is not really a question of
the air flowing backwards, but of the ball driving through the
atmosphere, but we have merely to consider what may possibly be the
effect of this action.
It seems to me that the air, in passing back and round the ball in the
manner described, is also in a state of compression until it has
passed backwards and, to a slight extent, behind the golf ball, so
that we have, if we may so express it, attached to the ball a tail of
compressed air which is constantly striving to resume its normal
density at a slightly varying distance behind the ball in its passage
through the air.
If my idea, which is expressed now in an extremely unscientific and
popular form, is correct, it would seem that the roughened ball holds
more straightly into this tail of compressed air than it would be
possible for a smooth ball to do; in other words, it seems to me that
there would be a greater possibility of the smooth ball slipping the
pressure which would be accentuated on that portion of the ball which
Professor Thomson describes as its nose, and it seems feasible,
although I do not care to be dogmatic on this point, that if the
centre of gravity of the smooth ball were untrue, as indeed the centre
of gravity of nearly every smooth ball is, the effect of the pressure
of the condensed air on the front of the ball would be much more
pronounced with the smooth ball than it would in the case of the ball
marked by excrescences or indentations.
I am aware that this idea of mine is open to argument, and I do not
say for one moment that it is absolutely correct. It is undoubted that
there is much uncertainty in the minds of extremely scientific men as
to the cause for the uncertain flight of the smooth golf ball. Even so
distinguished a scientific inquirer as Professor Sir J. J. Thomson
assured me that he did not understand the reason for the erratic
behaviour of the smooth ball. There is possibly another explanation,
but again I put this forward tentatively. Even when a ball is driven
by a golf club without appreciable spin, as indeed most golf balls
are, it seems to me quite possible, especially in the case of the
balls with defective centres, that before they have gone far on their
journey they will proceed to acquire spin on account of the tendency
of one side to lag more than the other.
It seems, then, that if this spin is set up in the manner which I
described, it may, and indeed quite likely will, influence the path of
the ball sufficiently to deflect it from the original line of flight,
but as this spin has no very great power behind it, it seems quite
likely that when it has deflected the ball from the line of flight it
may be checked to such an extent that the atmosphere has a chance to
get to work on the ball again and produce that which is practically a
reverse spin. In this way, and in this way alone, can I see any reason
for the double swerve which I have already referred to, in the carry
of the golf ball. It must be understood that in the case of double
swerve which I am referring to, the deflection from the straight line
has always occurred at a point in the carry where one would not expect
to see it if it had been occasioned by spin administered by the club,
and it is always very much less indeed than the swerve would be if it
had been obtained by spin produced by the club.
Also there is this other fact against the hypothesis that the swerve
is produced by spin imparted at the moment of impact. In the swerve
which I am referring to, both the first swerve and the return swerve
which takes the ball back again into the line of flight are very
slight, and in most cases practically of the same length and degree.
If the original deflection from the straight line were due to rotation
of the ball acquired at the moment of impact, the swerve and return to
the straight line, if there were any such return, would never be so
symmetrical as they are.
I can quite easily understand the double swerve of a golf ball from
spin produced by the contact between the club and the ball, although I
must admit that I have never seen a swerve of this nature in golf
which I could put down unhesitatingly to spin acquired at the moment
of impact. I must, however, when I say this, except one instance. This
was in the case of a ball hit with back-spin, and although it is in a
sense improper to refer to it as double swerve because it only
affected the trajectory and did not alter the plane of the ball's
flight in any way, it was, in a sense, a case of double swerve. It was
a wind-cheater struck by a very good player at Hanger Hill. The ball
flew very low and looked as though it was about to hit a bunker, when
suddenly, on account of the tremendous amount of back-spin which the
player had put on his ball, it rose with the ordinary rise of the
wind-cheater and soared straight away for thirty or forty yards, when
it began to tower in the ordinary manner of the wind-cheater. This was
such an extraordinary shot that I illustrated it in _Modern Golf_, but
I have never, in the course of fifteen years' acquaintance with the
game, seen another shot of the same description.
There is no doubt whatever that double swerves may be obtained by the
axis of rotation of the ball altering during the flight of the ball. I
can remember quite clearly at a meeting of the All-England Lawn-tennis
Club at Wimbledon, a player informing me quite seriously that a
lawn-tennis ball would swerve two ways in the air. At that time I was
under the impression that I knew all there was to be known about the
flight of the ball. I did not contradict him, but inwardly I pitied
him; but at the same time I made up my mind to watch for this
phenomenon, little as I expected to see it, for in the course of at
least seventeen years' practical acquaintance with the game of
lawn-tennis wherein one has a splendid opportunity of observing the
action of spin on the ball, I had never seen, or perhaps it would be
more correct to say I had never observed, any ball swerve two ways.
It was not many days after this that I distinctly saw an American
service, delivered by one of the players in the All-England
Lawn-tennis Championship, swerve two ways. Since then I have looked
for this phenomenon, and I have seen it happen both in lawn-tennis and
golf, but I am satisfied that in golf it is not due to spin acquired
at the moment of impact, as undoubtedly it is in lawn-tennis. It seems
to me that with the lawn-tennis ball, which offers a very large
frictional area in proportion to its weight, that it is quite feasible
that during its travel, particularly in the American service, it may
alter its axis of rotation on account of encountering a heavier bank
of air, or for some other reason. It naturally follows that
immediately this takes place the arc of the original swerve is
interfered with, but in no case have I seen in lawn-tennis, as I have
in golf, the original swerve of the ball exactly compensated for by
the swerve back into the straight line, which is the peculiarity of
the double swerve at golf.
There is no doubt that there is a considerable amount of mystery in
this matter. It may appear that it is not of much importance to
golfers, from a practical point of view, whether it is solved or not,
but it is hard indeed to say how useful a proper understanding of the
higher science of the game may be in the practice of it; and in the
experiments carried out by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey with so much
patience and ability we have a very good example of the value to
golfers of the scientific investigation and consideration of matters
appertaining to the various implements of the game.