How Haskell Got the Hunch by H. M. Regner, “The American Golfer” Dec. 1926

Golf balls are some of the most prized of all golf artifacts. Until the 1850’s, the golf balls were a feather filled leather covered sphere, fondly called the “Featherie”. About 1850 a ball made of solid Gutta Percha, a hard rubber from Malaysia, was introduced and was used exclusively until about 1900 when a softer, rubber core ball emerged and literaly changed the game of golf. Featheries, Gutties and the early “Haskell” balls are extremely collectible and are the center pieces of many famous collections.

Here is an article that will help you understand the evolution of the modern day golf ball.

No other step in the development of golf running back over a period of some five hundred years has had so far reaching an effect as the introduction of the rubber-cored ball. There are some who go so far as to say that but for this invention, golf would never have reached the popularity that it now enjoys.

On a hot summer’s afternoon back in 1898, Mr. Coburn Haskell, a retired businessman strolled into the office of a friend, Bertram G. Work, at the time superintendent for the B. F. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. As they were discussing the game of golf, Mr. Work said, “All right then, go ahead and do something to make golf an even better game. Invent a new ball or design a new stick or something of the kind.”

Now here was an idea. For a minute or so Haskell sat silent, and then said, “If a good rubber ball could be developed--a solid one--why I believe it would mean a big improvement in the game.”

“Solid rubber won’t do,” interrupted his companion, “too soft; it would take too much compression in the hitting.”

“Then how about compressing the rubber in the manufacture?”

“No, that won’t do either.”

“Well, what of this idea-suppose you cut the rubber strips and stretched these and wound them into a ball; you could then get the ball as hard or soft as you chose, couldn’t you?”

“Now, you have said something,” answered Mr. Work. He sent out and had a supply of rubber yarn brought in and invited Mr. Haskell to go to work on the first rubber golf ball ever attempted.

“It was an amazing sight,” explains Mr. Work now as he recalls those experiences. You who have never tried the experiment can’t fully appreciate the difficulty of trying to wind this ball of rubber yarn, keeping the strand pretty well stretched while it is being wound. I don’t know how many times it happened that Haskell got the thing going and brought it up to about the size of a marble only to have it slip from his grasp and quite unroll itself on the floor. Haskell would do a little “cussing” and start all over again.

“Finally in the dusk of the evening, with a beam of triumph, he presented to me a ball about the size of a walnut, fairly round and with the strands quite tense. It felt firm and solid, but of course the need for a covering of some kind was obvious. Otherwise the first slight cut would start the thing unraveling and in less time than it takes to tell it there would be no ball left.”

The early experimenting to develope a satisfactory covering fell to Mr. Work. He began casting around for an idea as to the correct substance to form the cover and eventually chose gutta percha. At the present time coverings are made of balata. Also Mr. Work evolved a plan for heating a slab of gutta percha, molding it into shape and pressing it onto the ball.

This operation is considerably simpler in the telling than in the doing, but it was eventually completed. The ball was then painted, and Mr. Haskell was off to his golf club with it. He summoned Joe Mitchell, the club professional, went to the first tee, teed it up and asked Joe to hit it. The mold in which the cover had been pressed on was the same as that used for making “gutty” balls, and the new ball looked quite the same as the others.

Mitchell, little suspecting the part he was playing in the history of the mechanics of the game, took his stance and swung. At a considerable distance out from the tee a cross bunker extended the full width of the fairway. It was placed there to catch a topped second, and only the most prodigious drive with the old “gutty” would cause the ball to reach it even on the roll. The idea that one could actually hit a ball over it on the carry was more than preposterous. Mitchell’s drive landed on the fairway yards beyond the further limits of the bunker.

Mitchell watched the flight of the ball with open-mouthed wonder. When he saw it strike the turf well beyond the bunker, he began a kind of a dance and set up a yell of surprise. Had he actually carried the bunker or was he seeing things? If he had carried the bunker, then what in the world was in that ball to make it travel so far? Then Mr. Haskell let him in on the secret of what made that mighty drive possible.

That’s the way it started-this rubber-cored ball, which really revolutionized the game of golf. Mr. Haskell and Mr. Work, who incidentally has climbed to the position of president of his company, were the co-inventors, and it was decided to call it the Haskell ball. There still remains several chapters of the long story of development from that day on down to the present, in the course of which many improvements and refinements have been made from time to time. Four years later, that is in 1902, Sandy Herd won the British Open Championship, thus becoming the first player ever to win a big national title while playing the rubber-cored ball. Since then, few, if any titles in golf have been won with anything else.