The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1902-09-25
NEW GOLF BALLS
IN OLD ENGLAND

The usually placid world of golf has
lately been threatened with an upheav-
al, proceeding, like so much that is
strange and new, from America.
The cause is a golf ball of novel con-
struction, which has attained great
vogue in the United states, and was
used by many of our own players in
the recent international match and
amateur championship. including the
winner and runner-up in the latter.
The original golf ball appears to have
been made of wood like that used in
jue de mail and in the kindred Flemish
game of chole. but from about 1850 to
1850 golf balls were made of feathers,
stuffed hard into a case of leather and
handstitched. These balls were never
satisfactory. In wet weather they be-
come sodden, they flew badly, and they
were liable to split and mott their
feathers; moreover they cost half a
crown each.
When the gutta-percha ball came in
it's success was at once assured. Even
if it had not flown better and lasted
longer than the feather ball, the fact
that it was Is Cd cheaper would have
made an irresistible appeal to the thrift
ty Scots mind. From 1850 till now
nothing has seriously challenged the
ball of solid gutta-percha. Many COM
positions have been tried, but none
have had more than the briefest sue
cess, and in the meantime the manu-
facture of gutta-percha balls has been
carried to perfection, the annual out
put amounting to many millions.
Looking to the perfectly satisfactory
behavior of the gutta-percha ball. the
only problem left for the manufacture
ers appeared to be to produce an equally
good all at a slightly lower figure, and
this, so far. no one has been able to do.
Our American cousins, however, con-
ceived the bold idea of a ball that
should be so much better than the gut
ta-percha one that golfers would not
object to pay higher price for it. The
Haskell ball is the first embodiment of
this idea, and it remains to be seen
whether it's pretentiOns will be justi-
fed.
The Haskell is a composite ball. 1t
| has a core of gutta-percha about the
size of a marble, and round this arc
wound thin strings of the kind of elias
tic used in "jemimas." All this is in
cluded in a casing of gutta-percha
about an eighth of an inch thick, the
ball presenting the outward semblance
of an ordinary guilty"
When the Haskell first reached these
shores, about eighteen months ago, il
+ utterly failed to justify the reports
which preceded it from America II
was fairly tried by most of the best
players; but so far was it from adding
the twenty or thirty yards of extra
| length to the drive claimed for it, that
few were found to grant it any super
iority in this respect over the ordinary
ball. In addition, it was so lively as to
render approaching and putting ex-
tremely difficult, and it was liable ia
split. In fact, if it's price had been Cd
instead of the &c Cd at which it was re-
tailed, the fact would hardly have mi
tigated the almost universal condem-
nation it received on it's first appear
ance.
So matters were until the eve of the
recent amateur championship. The
/ ball was practically forgotten, but the
makers in the mean time had been
making improvements on it, A fresh
lot was sent over, in which some of the
balls defects were remedied, and many
players found an appreciate gain from
using it. But at the amateur cham
pionship a very remarkable thing was
observed. The big hitters did not get
any further with the Haskell than with
the guilty; but many of the moderate
drivers added a good many yards to
their shots, and drove as far as the
long drivers.
The explanation of the phenomenon
generally accepted is that, if hit with
the force exerted by the longest drives,
the ball more or less cOllapses, not nav
ing the hardness and quicker recovery
of the gutta-percha ball. But if hit
with less force and in a more pushing
or sweeping manner it carries and runs
further than a gutta-percha ball hit
in the same way.-London Mail.