ABSTRACT
Manufacturers of golf balls set out to persuade the club golfer of the special qualities of their own particular brands. This paper examines the relative performance in terms of accuracy and distance of balls regularly advertised in the popular golf magazines to test the assertions made by manufacturers. Eighteen golfers were divided into three equal groups of low (LH), middle (MH) and high handicaps (HH). Each subject played eight shots with two clubs—a three wood and a five iron with six different balls. The distance of each shot and its deviation from a target line were recorded. The balls from 3 different manufacturers were tested. Balls A and C were 2-piece surlyn covered and B a 3-piece balata from the same company. Balls D and E were 2-piece surlyns from two different companies and F a 3-piece surlyn covered ball recovered from a water hazard. The results showed that LH group were significantly longer and more accurate with each ball than both other groups (P<0.05), but there were no significant differences between the MH and LH groups. The claims for greater distance for balls C and D are confirmed for LH but at the expense of a slight loss in accuracy. The MH group received no significant advantage in distance or accuracy from any of the balls on trial. The cheaper Lake balls were significantly shorter for the high handicappers.
