Found some old balata balls

[High gentle draw]

Not sure to post this here or the ball forum. I was recently given a shoe box full of old balls and to my suprise, I found two old balatas in there,The Spalding Tour Edition 100 and the Maxfli HT 90. From What I understand the Tour edition was one of the spinniest balls ever made. I've heard stories of Greg Norman spinning 5 irons off the green with this ball. And the HT 90 Is just absolute butter off of my old Ping Putters. I know they've lost some energy over the years, But I can't wait to go out and play with these balls and my old blades. Will post results soon.

[deetsal]

Don't! Any one new to golf, as in not played before 1980 will fall in love with the feel of a good balata ball. You then will embark on a quest to find modern all that feels a like it. This will lead you to the new soft balls like the Duo's. They will not spin but feel great. You will go to balls like the Crome soft and Duo Urethane with marginal results. You then will spend the next 37 1/2 years trying to build a time machine, with little success. You wife will leave you, your kids will disown you,and you dog will die of old age. You will die with your life work, i.e. trying to go back in time not realized and have nothing but regrets.

 

Once you have been to the mountain top and seen the view you will never be happy with the view from below. Or you could just find someone that has some and buy them. Yea that seems easier.

[High gentle draw]

Wow, the Tour Edition might be the worst feeling ball i've ever hit. This thing is a serious rock! The Maxfli on the other hand, pure butter. Makes a Pro V feel like an old Top Flite. I wish they would bring balatas back.

[farmer]

Those old balata balls were the best feeling balls (save maybe a featherie?), and darn near anyone could do tricks with them around the green. Unfortunately, they were as durable as a new car wash. You can cut one with a harsh word and they were frequently out of round when new. I've got a couple of sleeves of them, and took one to the barn range. I'm not and never was a big hitter, but after five swats with a modern driver, it was visibly out of round.

[Ironmaster Oddities]

the Tour edition 100 is a later iteration of the original. harder cover. Originals were spinmeisters. Greg Norman probably lost the PGA to Bob Tway due to the way it spun.

Original balls had a very soft cover made of Zinthant, a proprietary product which was supposed to replace Balata.

[jonnygrouville]

Would love to know what else was on the list when they decided on Zinthant. This was the best?! Long lunches in the marketing department.

 

So we're replacing balata. Replac... lata? Replata? Replac... ball? Replacball... ata? Ball... ata? Balata?

 

Get your coat Jerry.

 

[SteveNZ]

Believe the cover material was Zinthane, not Zinthant. Not a lot better really though, is it?

[NRJyzr]

Zinthane was probably a form of urethane. Maxfli also switched to urethane during the HT's run on the market, and also used them for the Elite, at the end of the wound ball...

[RSinSG]

You can still get them "new" in the box from eBay. I've gotten some in the past to use with my vintage Ping bag.

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=&_osacat=18924&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR5.TRC1.A0.H0.Xbalata.TRS0&_nkw=balata&_sacat=18924

[alittleoverpar]

I remember playing the Titleist Professional 100. Was always my favorite ball!

[lefty76]

Highgenrledraw, I have heard from a fellow that has classic golf balls manufactured that there is an effort being made for bringing back balatas. I spoke with him maybe a year ago and haven't checked back but I hope they're still trying to make it happen. Just wanted to let you know.

[Bonneville85308]

Why did they stop making balata balls in the first place? Too expensive to make? Silly environmental ban on harvesting the trees? I recall it was around the time that the Strata became the hot selling ball. I just never thought about the real reason why they went away. Not being a long hitter, I didn't lose much distance on long shots with them, but they were awesome around the greens.

[larryw]

Why did they stop making balata balls in the first place? Too expensive to make? Silly environmental ban on harvesting the trees? I recall it was around the time that the Strata became the hot selling ball. I just never thought about the real reason why they went away. Not being a long hitter, I didn't lose much distance on long shots with them, but they were awesome around the greens.

 

It seems the game passed them by - Callaway came out with the Rule 35 golf ball (the first 3 piece urethane covered ball of note) and I remember reading that about 6 months later there were over 80 tour pros playing the new ball. It was longer off the tee and easier to control without the excessive spin or so it seems. Most pros don't need the extra spin on short clubs. The industry probably rushed to meet the changing game. Really have been doing that ever since - some would say.

[jmcorr4]

Titleist Professional 90 for me. But the Titleist Tour Balata & those Maxfli Balatas were the best, period. Nothing in the world felt better than a perfectly struck tee shot with a persimmon driver and a balata ball. I dream of those days. I often play with younger guys at my club and try to explain it to them and they look at me like, are you crazy!

[Shilgy]

Why did they stop making balata balls in the first place? Too expensive to make? Silly environmental ban on harvesting the trees? I recall it was around the time that the Strata became the hot selling ball. I just never thought about the real reason why they went away. Not being a long hitter, I didn't lose much distance on long shots with them, but they were awesome around the greens.

IMO it's not so much the balata that made the feel as the wound construction. We all still loved the Maxfli HT when they switched to the urethane cover. My guess is that manufacturing costs are much lower with the solid core ball. Weren't prices a lot higher in the late 80's early 90's than now for tour balls?

[NRJyzr]

Why did they stop making balata balls in the first place? Too expensive to make? Silly environmental ban on harvesting the trees? I recall it was around the time that the Strata became the hot selling ball. I just never thought about the real reason why they went away. Not being a long hitter, I didn't lose much distance on long shots with them, but they were awesome around the greens.

IMO it's not so much the balata that made the feel as the wound construction. We all still loved the Maxfli HT when they switched to the urethane cover. My guess is that manufacturing costs are much lower with the solid core ball. Weren't prices a lot higher in the late 80's early 90's than now for tour balls?

 

 

I don't know about ball prices in the early 90s, but the price of the Professional that I remember seeing in the late 90s translates to $52 or so in 2016 dollars, per the CPI inflation calculator.

 

Agree with you on the wound aspect trumping the cover. I've got some of each balata and urethane versions of HT 100s.

[EmperorPenguin]

I will claim that I am the envy of all you GolfWRX members, and let me tell you why. Twenty-three years ago I worked at a golf course as a cart guy, and at the time I took the job just for free golf. I had the shameful job of cleaning golf carts and charging them for the next day. I did it eighteen months from 1994-1996, cleaning carts for five days a week. At the end of that time I looked at my balance sheet and realized that I was falling behind where I should be in life in terms of net worth, so I left that job for a more lucrative job and now I am ahead in life. My golf game suffered because I was not playing golf as much, but it was a good decision.

 

Despite that menial past of scrubbing golf carts I do have a cherished memoir: I have a trove of thousands of balata balls which I collected from the carts when they came in. I have two huge duffel bags of balatas that are used but still round and very playable. I use these balls to give to juniors I get paired up with and they immediately fall in love with them when I tell them to hit a 7-iron shot with them, and they also love it when they putt with it on the greens, too. For special occasions, I have one dozen dozen (i.e., twelve boxes staked vertically) brand new Titleist balatas in sleeves, Tour Balata 90's and 100's, Professional 90's and 100's, and a few others. You can look online on eBay or Amazon and find new balatas for sale, but they will not be cheap.

 

Most of the balatas feel pretty much the same, and by that I am referring to the liquid centers wound in rubber, and pressed into a balata cover. The softest in my opinion is the Royal Maxfli, which feels like a marshmallow when you hit it. The Spalding Tour Edition, I recall, is not true balata; it is technically a two-piece ball with a solid core and the cover is not true balata. I don't know why, but I remember a golf ball salesman telling me that it is impossible for a two-piece ball to have a balata cover because the harder compression of the core will make the balata cover rip.

 

Here is my best recollection of what happened to the balata market. When I started playing golf (1990) there were only two options of golf balls: two-piece and three-piece. The two-piece ball has a solid core and a Surlyn cover, and they were distance balls; you still see those balls today. The three-piece ball had two types: liquid center and rubber center. Both balls were wound in rubber thread, but the former was covered in balata and the latter was covered in Surlyn (best example was the Titleist DT series). In the mid-1990's the industry was trying to combine both features, a distance ball that spins more, with the first one models I can remember was the Top Flite Z-Balata (which was not true balata, by the way) and the Titelist HP2. When pros were hitting the HP2 (I think Corey Pavin played it), I remembered seeing instead of balls hitting the green and spinning back, balls were stopping where they were landing. Another example was the Maxfli XS (which Greg Norman got disqualified due to a stamping issue). At about 1997, Spalding released their Top Flite Strata ball, which was a four-piece ball that spun almost like balata (I have two new boxes and a sleeve of new prorotypes at the time). Mark O'Meara won his two majors in 1998 with the Strata, and the balata market was starting to sink. Bridgestone had the Precept EV (I have two boxes of it) and Ray Floyd played it. Maxfli Revolution was an excellent ball with, I recall, a wound ball combined with a solid core layer and a softer, balata-type cover. Prior to 2000, I remember Tiger played the Titleist Professional 90 or 100. In 2000 he switched to the Nke Tour Accuracy ball, which I remember hearing from a ball salesman, was simply a ball made by Bridgestone (their model was called the Tour Premium) and simply had a Nike stamp on it and named the Tour Accuracy; I looked at both balls and saw that the dimple patters were identical.

 

The newer balls spun less, carried higher and farther with the driver, but rolled less when landed in the fairway. Balata was phasing out, and completely fell when Phil MIckelson beat Tiger Woods coming from behind at Eastlake for the Tour Championship (2001?), and in his interview following the win I remembered him saying, specifically, "I must put in a word for Titleist for helping me win with their new Pro V1 golf ball." Thus the start of the new era. The last Titleist production balata ball was the Tour Prestige, a few of which I have today.

 

I still have great times on retro days when I show up at the golf course with blades, persimmons and balatas. Everyone wants to try my equipment and hit a balata with it. Feels like heaven.