The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

Putting, especially near the hole, is a very delicate operation, and it is apparent that in many cases the blow will be delivered on the point of one of these excrescences. It is equally apparent that in many cases that excrescence will not be in such a line with regard to the putter that the force of the blow will pass clean through the centre thereof, and also through the centre of the ball's mass in a line to the hole. When it does not do this it is certain that there is an element of inaccuracy introduced into the put (particularly the short put) which the wise golfer will not have in his stroke, for not only is the ball with excrescences more inaccurate off the face of the putter, but it is, particularly for short puts and on keen greens, much more inaccurate in its run than is the ball which is marked by indentations.

This question of hitting one of the pimples of the golf ball might be considered to be theoretical, but it is a matter of the most absolutely practical golf, and I have seen the force of it exemplified not only in golf, but in lawn-tennis. I must give here a very interesting illustration of the point which I am making.

Some time ago a lawn-tennis racket was produced which had a knot at the intersection of the strings. The idea of this knot was that it would enable the racket to get a better grip on the ball, and so to produce a much greater spin. This, to a certain extent, was correct. There was no doubt that the racket did get a very good grip on the ball, although personally, as a matter of practical lawn-tennis, I never regarded the invention very seriously; but it was useful in emphasising the point which I am now making with regard to the marking by excrescences of the golf ball. It was found that when one attempted to play delicate volleys with this racket that it was impossible to regulate the direction, for the simple reason that the ball, on many occasions, was struck by one of the knots on the racket, and this frequently spoilt the direction of the stroke.

What happened with that racket and the lawn-tennis ball is what is happening every day on hundreds of greens with the golf balls which are marked by excrescences, and the golfer who is wise will have nothing whatever to do with any ball which is marked otherwise than by indentations.

It was in the year 1908 that I first put forward these ideas in an article in The Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette. I had written many articles which were of much greater importance to the game from the scientific point of view, but this particular article eclipsed them all in interest. I had started the idea that the golf ball should be made much smoother than it was at that time, and for four months the controversy as to the merits of the rough ball or the smoother raged. I caused the leading manufacturers of golf balls to be interviewed. The manager of Messrs. A. G. Spalding & Bros., the well-known manufacturers, gave it as his opinion that the idea was perfectly ridiculous. He was quite convinced that the rough ball was the better ball. The manager of another company was of opinion that the smoother ball would not drive straight. Many of them traced this to the fact that a smooth ball would not fly straight, but we were not concerned with the question as to whether the smooth ball would fly straight or not; golfers, generally, are well aware of the fact, and even in 1908 were well aware of the fact, that a perfectly smooth ball will not fly straight. The whole point of the discussion was to ascertain if it would not be better to have a much smoother ball than that with the bramble marking.

I was interested in having the opinion of the golf ball manufacturers, for I have never thought that they have dealt with the matter in a scientific manner. It seemed to me that the evolution of the marking of the golf ball had been entirely haphazard, and it is, I believe, still in the same condition, but it certainly shows some signs of improving.

In order to put the matter beyond doubt I asked Mr. Rupert Ayres, of the famous firm of F. H. Ayres, Ltd., to have made for me a golf ball with an extremely fine marking; in fact I gave instructions for the ball to be marked with what I considered the least possible indentations which were likely to be serviceable. Mr. Ayres took a very great amount of trouble in connection with this matter, and he produced for me a ball similar, in all respects, to that which I wanted, with the slight exception that the marking was finer than I had desired. The result was that when the ball was painted the interstices were filled up to a very considerable extent, so much so indeed that I doubted if the ball was sufficiently marked to ensure its flying correctly. I tried this ball at Hanger Hill, both personally and by submitting it to a considerable number of drives by George Duncan, and it always gave unsatisfactory results—indeed its flight was so remarkable that it might well have been christened "the butterfly." It zigzagged and soared and ducked in a most remarkable, and to a very great extent, inexplicable manner.

I knew, of course, that what I had to do was to increase the indentations a little in depth, for my object was to obtain the mean between no marking whatever and the ridiculously exaggerated marking by excrescences which is now so common, and my experiments were not in the direction of obtaining any marking whatever by excrescences, for I was following on the lines which were accidentally discovered by those who found that the old feather balls, and particularly the gutta-percha balls, flew better after they had been indented by the golf clubs. My idea, therefore, was, starting from the least possible indentation, to proceed by marking the ball more deeply and yet more deeply until I found that it would fly as accurately as a ball marked by excrescences.

Mr. Ayres helped me in my experiments with remarkable patience and ability. I found that there are a hundred and one different markings, all of which are practically of equal service in so far as regards affecting the flight of the ball, but in every case I came to the conclusion that the marking by indentation is the best. This led me to get Mr. Ayres to produce for me a ball which he ultimately put on the market under my name, which was marked in identically the same manner as the old guttie. I believe "The Vaile" was the first rubber-cored ball with the old guttie marking to be placed on the market, and this marking was found to be satisfactory in every respect. The ball, as indeed one might imagine, both flew and ran perfectly, but it was met by golfers with a strange objection. They said it was too much like the old guttie. Personally, I did not care what they said about it. I had not caused the ball to be made from any commercial interest I had in the matter.

It had been stated that a ball marked like this would not be so good for golf as a ball marked with excrescences. I had proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the ball was better for golf than the ball which was marked by excrescences, and I was content to leave it at that, although as a matter of fact later on Messrs. Ayres did produce for me a ball with a more distinctive marking which gave us equally good results in so far as regards flight and run, but which I did not like nearly so well as the old guttie marking.