Wooden balls were played with until the early 1700's, when the featherie golf ball was concieved. A featherie is a hand made cow skin bag filled tightly with many goose feathers and coated with special paint. In the 20th century, golf balls with multipal layers were developed, firstly wound balls comprising of a solid or liquid core, rubber thread and a very thin shell. Golf balls today mainly involve two to four layer design, consisting of various synthetic materials. Available in a huge variety of playing stats to suit the needs of that particular golfer. When a golf ball is hit hard the impact and force decide the golf balls initial velocity, angle and spin rate. A ball travelling fast through air undergoes two huge forces, lift and drag. Drag decreases the motion, and lift acts in a perpendicular direction to that. all modern golf balls have special dimples, their main goal is to greatly increase the lift and drag forces. One major result of dimples is a immediate reduction of drag. A golf ball that is spinning creates a flow of air around the ball. All golf ball available on sale in the market today have betwwen three hundred an four hundred and fifty dimples. There were a few balls having over 500 dimples before. The world record for most dimples on a golf ball is 1,070 dimples. All makes and brands of golf balls have even-numbered dimples. The United States Patent and Trademark Office's patent database is a good source of past dimple designs. Most designs are based on Platonic solids such as icosahedron. |
