Parachute Golf Balls Continued!
Recently I received a reply to an article I wrote a number of months ago called, “Wackiest Training Aid: Parachute Golf Balls”
I wanted to share it with you as it has some wonderful additional information about these “parachute golf balls” from our friend Doug who resides in Scotland from Antique Golf Clubs.
REPLY BEGINS BELOW
I happened across your piece on: Wackiest Training Aid: Parachute Golf Balls. Often in golf design (and particularly with golf balls) there are madcap ideas which appear and disappear without trace, never to be heard of again.
Some which spring to mind are a radium-cored golf ball (in the late 1950s enthusiasm for all things ‘nuclear’; a 1912 patent where ‘the core of a golf or other ball consists of a bull’s penis first prepared by skinning or drying; or, in keeping with your love of GI Joe, the 1901 Saunders patent for balls with a compressed air centre – they had an alarming tendency to explode in mid-air).
Oddly enough, the parachute ball is not one of these – it has been popping up in various guises for the last hundred years.
The best-known parachute ball to collectors is the J B Halley model of the 1920s (photograph attached) but there are earlier examples. I have seen, at auction, a “Hopper” bramble ball (ca 1900-1905) fitted with a parachute.
Whether this was a private piece of ingenuity or a patented design, I don’t know, UK patents are rather hard to research than US ones but certainly “The Hopper” was available as a ‘normal’ ball without parachute.
Even into the 1920s it made sense to look after golf balls: the relative cost of golf ball to golf club was much higher in the early days. In 1905-1910 a club would only cost approximately two and a half to three times the price of a golf ball.
However, there are patents granted in the US for parachuting golf balls in
1964, http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3147979.htm
1991, http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5039106.html
and 1996, http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5480143/description.html
So this is an idea which has persisted.
If you have not already come across it, I recommend The Curious History of the Golf Ball, Mankind’s Most Fascinating Sphere, by John Stewart Martin, Horizon Press, NY, 1968.
Best Wishes
Douglas
Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland
www.antiquegolfscotland.com
Related posts:
- Wackiest Training Aid: “Parachute Golf Balls”
- Water Soluble Eco Golf Balls
- Are Small Balls Good Balls?
- What’s Wrong With Small Balls?
- Quest for a New Driver (Continued)
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
Hey Andy,
You have some good thoughts. Why not look a bit more into it? It certainly would have a kind of built-in publicity factor to it as it is so unique.
And looking at the big picture I don’t think we have seen the last of people trying to develop new ways to enjoy playing (and practicing golf) There is ALWAYS room for another good idea.
Doug
Over the years, so many new things have been tried and I thought I had a fairly good idea about the kind of golf balls that they have played around with but some of the revelations here do sound really interesting. The parachute golf ball theory does interest me quite a bit because I reckon based on this concept we can toy around with idea of a ball that can be used repeatedly for practice, can give you the feel of hitting a real golf ball but it may not necessarily travel much. This way you can practice quite a lot and don’t even have to bother yourself with trying to find a golf course where you can play. I came across this possibility by reading one of the patent links which signifies that as one of its main aims.
Another interesting use for such a ball could be in trying to introduce young kids to the game. I know that in many countries they are trying to popularize the sport at a very young age by making plastic balls and bats so that the kids can get a feel of the game. This kind of ball can definitely be introduced in schools where they are trying to inculcate the skills of the game. The one thing that I am not sure about is the cost of developing such a ball and is it comparable to the rates of production of a normal ball?