Nicklaus '86 Masters Ball?

Anybody know what ball Jack played for this great win? Thanks.

I’m not sure, but Jack was a Maxfli guy for most of the 80’s. I believe it’s was the Maxfli HT Ltd.

That's what I was thinking too. I know in his heyday he played the McGregor ball but I'm not sure when they stopped production.

Just did a Google search, found something that said Nicklaus used a MacGregor ball for all 18 of his majors. Think it was a Golfwek hit, talking about the MacGregor ball, overall.

Not sure the Maxfli HT was available in 1986.

Jack did use a MacGregor ball in the 86 Masters. It was the Jack Nicklaus Muirfield balata model 100 compression.

IIRC, the HT was circa late 80's early 90's. I miss them.

The HT was in production even into the mid-late 90s. I managed to score some, just prior to the Elite. And, they were mixed in with the Maxfli Circle P practice balls you could buy, even in 2000.

The Maxfli DDH HT balata ball was in the early 80's. I played them in high school from 82 - 86. See pic below. There were many of the top pro's playing that ball buring the time, Greg Norman, Hal Sutton, Fuzzy Zoeller, and a few more.

The Maxfli HT 100 was my favorite ball ever. I played it all thru junior golf. I wish Sumitomo would buy back the Maxfli name and change Srixon to Maxfli. They would sell a lot more golf balls. Especially if they used the original Maxfli logo. The new Bridgestone Tour B XS reminds me of a super up modern day Maxfli HT. It’s incredible. It’s very stable, great controlled flight, perfect feel and great spin.

Imagine if Jack had todays tech?

I don't think it would make the difference you might suppose. Today's tech has actually been a greater aid to those with less talent than the All Time players such as Jack. It's an equalizer, of sorts. Because they all would have it, the gulf would be slightly less.

Jack would still have his mental advantage, of course. It's possible or even likely it wouldn't change anything in terms of his majors won. But it could bring everyone else a bit closer to him than they were in the Time of Ye Olde Equipment.

I disagree but it would be fun to see.

I think what would be more fun is to see all the young guns have to use 260cc max drivers (maybe even 230cc max), and 25+ year old irons, for a couple months. Then we'd see what we'd see. :)

I don't think there would be much difference. See how far they hit their three woods now? 25 year old irons takes us back to Titleist DCIs. How different are they to modern irons?

Imagine todays pro trying to hit the same 1 iron jack used to use?

hand jack a TM or Titleist UDI and im sure he would be great with it.....cant say the same for pros using a butter knife with no loft....

Well the Titleist U500 has almost the same loft as his one iron (15 vs 16). Pros hit what they have. They're that good. I've no doubt modern players would be fine with butter knives if that was the only choice.

It's not distance that's the problem, Jack had that back then, as did George Bayer and others. The only difference to today is there are more of Jack's level of swingspeed. It's direction that's the issue.

Lower the MOI, without the help from the higher loft of a fairway wood, and the direction is more of an issue, players are forced to back off as they did 40-50 years ago.

Todays pro would drop a stinky in their pants if they lined up a 1 iron from the late 60's....

But that's the $64,000 question. Is it easier to wind back club tech, narrow fairways, or tell ball manufacturers that for elite events we're dropping the ball speed? There's no getting around the fact players are bigger and stronger, technique has changed and there are more of them.

Don't bother trying to change the clubs, that horse has bolted, but it's also been stabilized, how much further does at TS2 go on centre strikes than a 905R with an identical shaft? CT is fixed, pros don't really use longer shafts. Pros are that good that equipment doesn't matter as much as it does to Joe 90, so leave us alone if there are to be changes.

Bifurcation. Anchoring for amateurs (preferably everyone), just have a soft ball for pros.

How would Nicklaus go hitting a Cleek from sixty years prior?

Modern ball might not spin enough to get those old one irons up in the air as well. The newer driving irons have hot faces and tungsten in the bottom to help launch the ball.

I don't even think you need a different ball for the pro's. Just for the USGA/RA to approve a rolled back ball spec and allow local rules to use that ball for tournaments. You'd probably start seeing The Open and US Open using it. Probably the Masters. Certain high level amateur events at older courses would use it. It would allow those tournaments to be played at a lot of different courses. The PGA Tour could still use the same balls they do now. All of us could use the same balls we use now. Though it might be fun to pull out the other ball on short tracks.

lol. he played clubs reminiscent of the 1700's. he would play them like a boss

An often overlooked difference from Jack's era to today, is the consistency of the ball. The former president of Titleist told Jack in the 90's, if you played todays ball, you'd never lose. The consistency of the ball now is such that the two most different balls in a dozen are closer together than the two most similar in a box of MacGregor Tourneys. Tom Weiskopf was so convinced MacGregor was testing golf balls it gave Jack he would raid his bag. lol

lol. he played clubs reminiscent of the 1700's. he would play them like a boss

My god I miss the liquid filled Balata HT100 balls, played them all thru university golf in the early 90's

This was when you could actually hit a 30 yard cut with a 4 iron, even if your name wasn't Bubba Watson

(and of course a nutted 4 iron went 190)

God I used to love hitting long irons … now it's hybrids and UT's all day babies

PS Nicklaus has the most repeatable swing ever. Even Hogan was in awe of his game when the played early US Opens for Jack

You're right about the long irons. I remember when I used to carry a 2-iron and tee off with it using a balata ball. You could see the flight of the ball sort of take off nice and low for maybe 50 yards or so and then sort of slide up in the air. Plus the feel was great. Can't beat the feel of puring a long iron with a wound ball. When the Titleist Professional came out that was a real breakthrough as it wouldn't cut up nearly as bad as the balata ball.

Even though the new multi-layer urethane balls are excellent I'm guessing one reason the wound balls died off so quickly was their manufacturing time and expense vs the solid core balls. The bean counters loved it. Mass production versus hand winding one ball at a time.

I don't know that it's that much cheaper to make a multi layer solid core ball. keeping those layers consistent and centered is not something that's easy to do. Performance is the real reason for the change. Back in the day you had the wound balls and distance balls. The distance balls were solid core 2 piece balls that didn't spin like the wound balls. When the modern balls came out, all of a sudden you had a ball that had the ball speed and spin of a distance ball off the driver, but retained all the short game and iron spin of the wound balls. There's no pro who would give that up.

The differences weren't that profound. Early ball tests showed the primary difference was spin. Driving distance stat comparisons show less than a 6 yard increase for those players who were active on Tour in both 99 and 02 (or 01).