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acantrell

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How did they play with them?
Perhaps an ambiguous title, but I'm curious about how the equipment influenced the games of guys like Hogan, Jones, Snead, and those who played in that era? Specifically, how they controlled spin around the greens. For instance, I know that the old balata balls spun much more than the softest balls of today and were much more workable due to that fact, but did players like Bobby Jones and such experience the same sort of "check" or "bite" on the greens like we see today, or were the grooves on they're wedges and irons aggressive enough to promote such spin like we see now with Vokey SM's or Mack Daddy grooves. Just curious if anyone knows how their short games and such were influenced by the ball and their equipment. Thanks

-Andrew
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How did they play with Hickory shafts, persimmon heads, butter knife putters and irons that look like scrap metal? My grandfather did and he was a 3 handicap at worst. What do you think our kids will be playing with and saying about our equipment in forty years? We have pushed the limits to the max or have we? Just think about how much better fittings will be in a few years.

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How did they play with Hickory shafts, persimmon heads, butter knife putters and irons that look like scrap metal? My grandfather did and he was a 3 handicap at worst. What do you think our kids will be playing with and saying about our equipment in forty years? We have pushed the limits to the max or have we? Just think about how much better fittings will be in a few years.

 

 

True, but that doesn't really answer my question. More or less, I want to know if when Sam Snead hit a full wedge into the green, did it bounce once and stop or back up? That is all?

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In watching old matches I never really saw the ball back up. I did see it check on wedge shots but they played a lot of bump and roll shots. It took my grandfather a long time to get use to the Titleist Ballatas, they would spin on the softest of wedge shots. I found a few of them at the range, hit a few and I rarely make a ball back up, these things rolled a foot back in the grass.

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also consider the course conditions....their greens are like our fairways/1st cut....

Not overly receptive to backing up a ball.

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also consider the course conditions....their greens are like our fairways/1st cut....

Not overly receptive to backing up a ball.

 

This seems to be overlooked here in some discussions comparing todays palyers or equipment to that of yesteryear. The technology in greens keeping is space-adged, compared to the ballata days.

"Please accept my resignation.
I don’t care to belong to any club that
will have me as a member".

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Playing in the period of 1985 to 1990, with Ben Hogan PC irons, and using a Titleist 100 compression balata golf ball. I lived in Greenville, South Carolina at the time. Some of the courses had bermuda greens, and some had bent greens. If you hit 8,9,Pw, Sw and hit it into a sloped green or a spot that was sloped, from the fairway. It would one hop forward and then spin back. How much it spun depended on the course conditions. Dry fairways and a crisp strike produced the best results. I often spun a ball off the green from front pin positions. The 60 degree lob wedge was hardly in use in those days. Just the people who played ping clubs, and when I played with someone that did, I always tried to hit the L wedge. The balata ball would not spin back on a flat surface, it would one hop and stop. I have seen it one hop and then it hop backwards into it own divot several times. I have been anywhere from a 9 handicap to a +1 since the mid 80's. The Titleist Balata ball, was not a straight ball like todays balls are. You could not just hit it straight. You had to work it one way or the other towards your target

Few changes in any sport compare with the changes in the game of golf brought about by the rubber ball. It was invented in 1898 by a Cleveland, Ohio, golfer, Coburn Haskell, in association with Bertram Work of the B. F. Goodrich Company. The ball featured rubber thread wound around a solid rubber core. Early gutta-percha gave way to the Balata cover that was developed in the early 1900�s. The popular bramble, mesh, reverse mesh, and a great many other patterns gradually gave way to the aerodynamically superior dimple pattern first used in 1908. Seems the balata covered ball came into being in the early 1900's. The surlyn product was invented by a chemist in the 1960's as an accident. So the balata golf ball was first sold over a 100 years ago.

I am sure that most of the readers on this forum, dont remember or werent even born, when Neil Armstrong hit the golf ball on the moon. It was supposedly a top flite. The oil and water filled center of the Balata golf ball was thought to freeze in space or explode. Was the balata ball more durable than the modern day ball and the MD,Zip groove peel marks. NO it wasnt. If you just slightly mishit the balata ball, the a big SMILE would be on the cover, making it unplayable. The oil and liquid center would bust or leak from a mishit, with a knot on the ball coming up, making it unplayable. Do modern balls spin more, the NOP is close in greenside spin. But nothing compares on a full shot spin by any of the modern premium ball's.

As a side note, the Spalding Tour Edition spun more than any ball I have ever seen. It was a two piece ball, and made a funny sound when you putted with it. It spun so much, that most people that played it lost a great deal of distance with it. Greg Norman used this ball to win the British Open in 1986. It was made about 5 or 6 years, they also had a really funny color white to them.

The Titleist Nxt, DT Carry, DT Roll, the many Precept/Bridgestone balls, Callways Hx Hot, or the Big Bertha Ball, Nike and its many versions of mid ranged priced balls are just as good as the Balata ball of yesteryear. The Quality Control is better, the price is almost the same as the balata ball was 20 years ago. And if you just play the hit and bounce and roll a bit type game, then you will score just as well as a premium ball. But people say, what about that lie in the rough, with a pin tucked over a bunker, that I have to hit a shot that spins. Well golf is a game with many options, choose not to hit it there. It is called course managment. Go thru the option's quickly in your mind, and choose the one, that if u hit it bad you will still have a good chance of making a par or bogey. What are the odds that u will make a 3 for that one hole with a ball that spins, and if u have the same type of shot on 6 other holes. It will result in one par and the other 5 being bogeys or worse.

I personally play the Titleist ProV1x, why because the feel of the ball off the club head, is as close as I am going to get to a 1985 to 1995 model Titleist tour Balata 100 compression ball. I have asked more than one Titleist rep and they agree with me. I didnt ask a young gun. I asked rep's that had been working for a long time, that played the ball in its time.

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IMO here are the differences

 

Balata left the club at a lower trajectory, you got a lot of those low shots that took off low and spun into the air, kinda like an airplane taking off. As we know today the high launch low spin shot maximizes distance, this is where the Pro V is better for the good player.

 

Trajectory was lower on pitch shots as well, much easier to hit the low spinner, I don't remember green side spin being that much greater, I found an old tour balata at the range the other day and was hitting shots along with a ProV and did not notice that much difference on low spinners, but hitting high soft ones seemed harder with balata.

 

I do think the balata spun more on full iron shots, the ball did curve more in the air, this is why you could hit a 1 and 2 iron, if you had clubhead speed, the ball would start low and spin into the air, today if you try to hit a 1 iron the ball seems to launch higher and then it seems to kinda drop to the ground unless you really hit it pure with a lot of speed. This is why hybrids are so popular.

 

The worst part about these balls was the quality control. Would balls were not consistant, some would fly long, some would seem dead, this changed during the 1980's to some degree, but the real old timers used to tell me that during the 1960's and back you would buy a box of balls and all 12 balls might preform differently, so learning to control distance was not as precise.

 

Durability-this is where the proV really shines, in the balata days you would see balls with lumps and bumps, cuts and smiles all over them, balls were constantly out of round. You had to hit them pure, a pro would rarely use a ball for more than 3 holes.

 

Prior to circa 1982 ??? the dimple pattern technology changed considerably, the old balls had dimple patterns that were in a straight line around the ball, these balls would curve a ton,(Example would be the Titleist K2) these were the balls that really had to be worked, and were almost impossible to hit straight. When Titleist came out with the new Tour Balata with the high tech dimple patterns people were screaming that the game would never be the same (sound familiar?) The ball started flying somewhat straighter, and flew through the wind much, much easier, pros and good players began hitting it straighter, hitting it somewhat farther, and controling the ball better being that it would not balloon out of control as easily. I started playing golf right after this technology changed, and had the experience of using many of these balls that I found laying in the rough etc.

 

Remember the modern tour level ball is a fairly new invention, Tiger won his first two majors playing a Tour Balata, I believe he switched to the new Nike solid core ball first during the 2000 US open at Pebble, which may be the most dominating performance in the history of golf.

 

To me the real difference for the pros is that they hit the modern ball farther with todays driver technology. This is the real reason the ball is going so much farther, the pros were able to replace damaged balls without going broke, but for the average Joe playing balata could get expensive, since they could go out of round. Remember there are still a lot of course records that were shot with persimmon, blades and balata. The putters were blades as well, not Spiders or 3 balls, so when Johnny Miller continues to brag about his 63 at Oakmont :friends: remember that he was using a ball that was wound, with a very fragile cover, blades with very long hosels and a sweet spot right next to the hosel, and persimmon woods that would look like hybrids today, and a bulls eye putter with a sweet spot the size of a pencil eraser that weighs about 1/3 less than todays MOI monsters. As the PGA tpur says "these guys are (were) good. Many think that is why there are more good players today, whether this is true or not I dont know, but I think it closes the gap between good and great.

Ping G400 Testing G410.  10.5 set at small -
Ping G410 3, 5 and 7 wood

Ping G410 5 hybrid-not much use.  
Mizuno JPX 921 Hot Metal. 5-G
Vokey 54.10, 2009 58.12 M, Testing TM MG2 60* TW grind and MG3 56* TW grind.  Or Ping Glide Stealth, 54,58 SS.  
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ProV1x-mostly
 

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As a side note, the Spalding Tour Edition spun more than any ball I have ever seen. It was a two piece ball, and made a funny sound when you putted with it. It spun so much, that most people that played it lost a great deal of distance with it. Greg Norman used this ball to win the British Open in 1986. It was made about 5 or 6 years, they also had a really funny color white to them.

That ball spun like crazy, I remember the first time I used it is the first time I ever saw one of my own balls spin back significantly. It was the precursor to the ProV1, performed much like it, soft cover, solid core, the problem was that Greg Norman endorsed it and blew a lot of tournaments because he could not keep the ball on the green with it. I read an interview with Norman several years back and he stated that that ball may have cost him several majors because he was always shoot way past the flag knowing the ball would spin like crazy. Ram also had a ball similar to this, I think it was calle the Tour Lithium????? that spun like a top, but when Titleist and Nike finally (some would really credit Bridgstone and maybe Callaway, but Tiger made it happen with Nike at the 200 US Open, and Titleis made it happen later that year with the introduction of the Pro V1)figured out how to make a solid core ball that spun around the green, that was relativley durable, and had high launch and low spin with a driver the sales of the ball jsut exploded along with tour useage.

Ping G400 Testing G410.  10.5 set at small -
Ping G410 3, 5 and 7 wood

Ping G410 5 hybrid-not much use.  
Mizuno JPX 921 Hot Metal. 5-G
Vokey 54.10, 2009 58.12 M, Testing TM MG2 60* TW grind and MG3 56* TW grind.  Or Ping Glide Stealth, 54,58 SS.  
Odyssey Pro #1 black
Hoofer, Ecco, Bushnell
ProV1x-mostly
 

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back when I was playing the feathery uhhhhhhhhhhh wait a moment Ken you are not that damn old

 

Ok on good greens in the sixtys and seventys you would see guys spin it occassionaly on tour the one I remember the most was Player and those fiberglass shaft clubs seriously we were worried more about controlling the old ball than spinning it

 

Most of us carried a ring around to check the ball for roundness I could beat a ball out of round in as few as four holes. In tournaments I changed balls every three holes . The tour pros some changed every hole.

 

But I totally agree it was the greens the course I play at now has bermuda greens nobody spins it much about once a year these greens get in their best shape and a few of us can spin it back a little

 

Just down the road at a bent grass course when there has been some rain ( the green sup keeps them firm) you can spin the ball off the green with any short iron I have seen pitch shots try and back up

 

by the way DLY

 

Miller continues to brag about his 63 at Oakmont remember that he was using a ball that was wound, with a very fragile cover, blades with very long hosels and a sweet spot right next to the hosel, and persimmon woods that would look like hybrids today, and a bulls eye putter with a sweet spot the size of a pencil eraser that weighs about 1/3 less than todays MOI monsters.

 

 

that is very well said and pretty much somes it up

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The course designs and setups were dramatically different from today.

1. Greens were substantially slower.

2. In the old days, they rarely sprinklered the greens, much less the fairways or god forbid the rough.

3. Look at the pin positions in old matches on TV. Notice how many were in the middle of the green? Nobody tucked the pin 3 inches over the bunker and 1 foot from the right rough.

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