A Step Back In Time (Golf Balls)

A seller on Ebay sent me these two balls with a purchase I made from him. I played both of these for years back in the 1980's, and they bring back a lot of memory's....... good and bad.

The Top-Flite was like hitting a brick in comparison of today's economy balls, but they were almost impossible to destroy. I stopped using them in the cold weather because it would darn near ruin your hands with a mishit off the old Macgregor MT's. I still cringe at memories of the pain from a few of those hand stingers today. It was a lower flight ball, and Top Flite came out with the higher flight XL later on.



The Titleist ProTrajectory 100 was the ProV1 of it's era, and played by most every good player. It was a wound ball with a very soft balata cover. You could almost look at this ball the wrong way and it would cut open. 2 or 3 good wedge shots would often destroy the ball leaving deep groove tracks all over it. It was my ball of choice in the colder months because it didn't sting as bad on a mishit.



You didn't want to hit very many bladed or thin shots with the Titleist on a cold day either, or it would eventually end up looking like a Chia Pet.



Anyone else have these experiences to share with these?

I certainly remember and have experience with both balls. I prefer to keep those experiences in the past and enjoy the amazing jump in technology of today's balls though..haha. It still amazes me what the pros of yesteryear could do with the significantly inferior balls and equipment when compared to today's standards.

Sox Fan said:

I certainly remember and have experience with both balls. I prefer to keep those experiences in the past and enjoy the amazing jump in technology of today's balls though..haha. It still amazes me what the pros of yesteryear could do with the significantly inferior balls and equipment when compared to today's standards.

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I still remember a President of a golf company standing on a podium and telling the media "The wound ball is not dead" after the solid core became a real thing and showed gains across the board.

Night and day is the only way to describe the difference in the old balls to the new!!

My parents dogs would get my dads old balata balls and chew on them. It was always hilarious when they would "explode" and unwind. The dogs would scatter and we'd have to grab the balls and clean up before they ate the rubber.

I can remember growing up, in a non golfing house, walking near a golf course and picking up golf balls OB over the fence, taking them home, cutting them open, and rolling them down the street to see how long the rubber band would go as a string. So much fun. Looking back, now I could image damaging a ball like that, shag bag FTW!!!

Man I played the Titleist Tour Balata for years and loved that thing. I actually bought like 12 dozen of them before they quite carrying them in the stores so I could keep playing them. But yeah... One thin wedge and the ball was toast. In some cases, one well struck drive and the ball was egg shaped. But the feel was phenomenal. I remember some rounds going through 7 or 8 balls without losing one.

Back then I played the Professional exclusively, until I found the magic in the Maxfli Revolution...