Also, a ball that spun a lot was hardly what the chronic slicer or hooker needed because the extra spin moved the ball even farther into the woods. Too much spin even bothered pros, who didn't like to watch their approach shots spin too far backward. Entering last year, the challenge for ball makers was to find a way to combine the two properties - to come up with a Holy Grail ball that would spin less when smacked on tee shots and yet have a desired amount of spin on shots closer to the hole. The magic material that has made this happen is urethane, a material discovered by a German scientist in the 1930s. Urethane, which has been used in floor coverings and bowling balls, is applied as the final layer of a golf ball.
Urethane is passive when struck hard yet has a soft feel on finesse shots.
The harder you hit it, the less it spins. Every other golf ball, the harder you hit it, the more it spins. And so what that does is give you a different launch off the driver . . . However, tests showed that a higher launch angle with balls that didn't spin as much resulted in more distance. Records falling The new balls are considered responsible for what is becoming a year of wild golf results.