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How to intentionally degrade a balls performance but keep it cosmetically intact?


Matadorb32

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I know this is a weird topic, but I thought it would be a funny prank to play on one of my regular playing partners. I will absolutely tell him after the fact but I thought it would be hilarious to hand him a Pro V1 and see him rip a drive for it to fall out of the sky after ~100 yds, or take a wild curve left/right. Does anyone know what would be the best way to purposely degrade a golf ball?

 

My initial plan is to freeze/thaw a ball a number of times. Maybe soak it in water for a few weeks so it gets waterlogged?

 

Any other ideas?

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No idea how safe this would be, but you could pierce the cover with a fine syringe and inject something caustic/corrosive into the core to create either a void or something funky anyway.

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Long-exposure water bath, perhaps?

 

edit: missed that comment in your OP. My bad. That's the best I can think of.

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You might try:

- Freeze overnight

- Drop it in hot tap water for a minute or so until the cover softens (core will still be frozen)

- Crank it in a vise with soft/padded/flat jaws

 

I bet you could get the core to crack that way. If you have a few shag-bag quality ProVs, you could do some testing and report back.

 

FWIW, I was bored and didn't want to work so I just tried drilling a hole in a ball that was cut in half and soaking it with Acetone (dissolves plastic) - not much happening. It was a Vice Pro Soft, not a ProV1, if that makes a difference.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, so I actually did try the drilling method. I clamped a Pro-V1x into a vice and drilled about half way down into the ball and mashed around a bit. I took a few of these balls to the range and surprisingly, it didn't have much of an effect. I was really expecting the ball to wildly slice or hook but if anything it was maybe only 15 yards offline.

 

Currently, I have a batch of balls that I have frozen/thawed about 10 times and they are now sitting in a water bath. I'll keep them soaking for another week or so and then I'll dry them out and repeat.

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A little disappointed coming here: and wasting time already this year that i'll never get back....

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Ok, so I actually did try the drilling method. I clamped a Pro-V1x into a vice and drilled about half way down into the ball and mashed around a bit. I took a few of these balls to the range and surprisingly, it didn't have much of an effect. I was really expecting the ball to wildly slice or hook but if anything it was maybe only 15 yards offline.

 

Currently, I have a batch of balls that I have frozen/thawed about 10 times and they are now sitting in a water bath. I'll keep them soaking for another week or so and then I'll dry them out and repeat.

 

I imagine the drilling method worked with the old liquid centre balata balls but not so much with solid core balls. You might be better off drilling into the ball and inserting some lead weights to change the balance of the ball. I would imagine even 2-4 lead pellets would have a pretty drastic effect.

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hmmm. The inside of a Pro V1 is made up of polybutadine. From my understanding there is no solvent that will break it down, so drilling and injecting something is out of the picture. Too bad as that would be the most interesting thing to do. Literally turn the inside of the ball to mush.

 

What I would do is cut one in half (ratcheting pipe cutters work great for this) and then play around with techniques to remove material. This might not directly help, but it will be good to see what is on the inside and understand what effort it takes to remove it.

 

I would want to work towards being able to drill about 10 times though the same hole in the ball one dimple wide, then create some sort of scraper bit with 90* on the end and start removing material from the inside. Then refill with something that will effect ball flight etc.

 

You also need to work on how you can disguise the hole.

 

Seem like a fun way to waste a winter night or two.

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