While the size of the golf hole has been a standardised 4.25 inches since 1891, the golf ball and its size has undergone a non-stop evolution over the past century which continues to this day.
The use of different materials has led to technological advances, the most recent notable example being the mass switch to a fully solid golf ball in the early 2000s following manufacturing developments and the dominance of a certain 15-time major champion. However, like all aspects of equipment, the rules of golf govern the specific limits around the creation of new golf balls, with specific requirements for both weight and size.
History and development of golf ball size
The first golf balls used by the relative masses were known as the ‘featherie’, a hand-woven leather sphere, filled with goose feathers which were both expensive and time-consuming to create, as well as being difficult to make perfectly round.
The dominant ball for the early part of the 19th century, it was replaced by the introduction of the ‘guttie’ around 1850, a ball which was made from dried tree-sap, making it much cheaper and easier to produce.
Around the turn of the century, the Haskell ball was introduced featuring wound rubber innards, wrapped in balata – a creation which would span the first 60 years or so of the 20th century, and a product seen as the true origin of where golf ball design is today.
In the 1960s the industry found a way of replicating the benefits of the wound ball in a more cost effective fashion, signalling the end of the Haskell ball and the start of true mass-production.
However, as might be expected with rapid technological advancements, certain practices were not standardised across the globe, leading to the now difficult-to-believe situation where golfers in Europe were playing a smaller golf ball – at 1.62 inches – compared to those in the US playing an American ball measuring 1.68 inches.
