Feathers, Brambles, Dimples: Collecting Vintage Golf Balls by Linda Rosenkrantz on Creators.com

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Feathers, Brambles, Dimples: Collecting Vintage Golf Balls

For many golfers — and there are more than 24 million of them in this country alone — golf season has just beginning. But for the vintage golf equipment collector, activity continues all year long.

Until relatively recently, their primary focus was on golf clubs, especially putters. But the vintage golf ball has been catching up as people become more aware of its interesting history, and its place as probably the essential element in the development of the game since the mid-19th century.

The forerunner of modern golf goes dates to 80 B.C., when Roman emperors played a game called "paganica" using a bent stick to drive a ball. Several centuries later, "paganica" evolved into the Scottish game of golfe, a much more direct ancestor.

The first golf balls were constructed of hardwoods such as beech, used from the mid-15th to the 17th century — in addition to experimental ivory, metal and even linen balls — when the "Featherie" ball was introduced in 1618. These were handcrafted leather spheres that were stuffed with goose feathers through a small hole in the casing using a special tool. The balls were constructed while both materials were wet so that the leather shrunk as it dried and the feathers expanded to form a hard, compact ball that was then coated with several layers of paint.

The disadvantages of these early balls included their being prohibitively expensive, they easily lost their round shape, and they were useless when wet. After some experimentation, the next step was the introduction of the solid gutta percha, a rubber-like substance from the sap of the tropical Gutta tree. The Rev. Robert Adams Paterson of St. Andrews, Scotland, invented the "Guttie" ball in 1848.

The Gutties solved most of the Featheries' problems, in that they were inexpensive and retained their shape even when wet, but they had problems of their own.

For one thing, they had a tendency to break into pieces. Secondly, their smooth surface caused the ball to twist erratically when hit and limited how far they traveled.

Fortunately, golfers soon discovered that, as the Gutties aged, becoming scarred and nicked, their path became truer. So golfers began to hammer dents into the Gutties themselves. Before long, manufacturers used this discovery and started to make molds that would put dimpled or recessed impressions on the balls from the start. One of the most popular early dimpled golf balls was known as the bramble, or bramberry, design.

In 1901, the modern rubber-cored ball appeared. Developed by Cleveland golfer Dr. Coburn Haskell in association with Bertram Work of the B.F. Goodrich Co., it featured elastic thread wound around a solid rubber core. They were at first nicknamed "Bounding Billies" because of their capriciousness, but their success was assured when Alexander Herd used one to win the 1902 British Open. The recessed dimpled ball was introduced by Spalding in 1908 and proved to be a great success; Goodrich introduced the pneumatic ball in 1906.

Improved golf balls led directly to many changes in the game, including scoring, clubs, even the design of greens, making courses longer to accommodate the increased distances possible with the new balls. On Jan. 1, 1932, the standardization of golf ball weight and size was established by the United States Golf Association. With the advent of the one-piece rubber ball in the 1960s, and the further development of improved rubber and space age plastics and silicone, the golf ball became the standardized item we know today.

But it's still the early Featheries and dimple-patterned Gutties that are most sought after by collectors.

Linda Rosenkrantz has edited Auction magazine and authored 18 books, including "Cool Names for Babies" and "The Baby Name Bible" (St. Martin's Press). Visit her baby names website at http://nameberry.com. She cannot answer letters personally. To find out more about Linda Rosenkrantz and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.