WEBVTT - Fried Egg Stories: The Ball, Part 3 - Better 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:02.960 This episode of Frida Egg Stories is brought to you 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.720 by our friends at b Dradty. So I want to 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.479 tell you about the willikru neck tee. It's a long 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.560 sleeve tea and I'm actually wearing one right now. You'll 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:13.680 just have to trust me on that. But as I've 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.479 been putting this doccupied series together, I've been wearing my 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.400 Willi crew neck tea a lot because it is so comfortable, 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:23.279 made of the softest Peruvian Pima cotton. And you know what, 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.640 I look better than I deserve to. So get yourself 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.640 to bdradty dot com, put a long sleeve T shirt 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:32.800 in your cart and inner code TFE for fifteen percent 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:37.040 off bdratty dot com code TFE fifteen percent off. 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.240 The frid Egg requires a different technique. 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.040 What you need to do is actually square the face 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:47.000 so it'll dig down underneath that bad lie and propel 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:48.240 that ball right out onto. 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:49.960 The green Here's the sake. 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.479 Playing out of a buried lion a bunker is completely 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.000 different than playing out of a nice clean lion a 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.680 greenside bunker. You'd need to be aggressive on any show 0:00:58.720 --> 0:00:59.800 weather it's sitting cleanly. 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.320 Well, we've all faced it to the dreaded Frida Egg. 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.240 Not to bet Beard, though, it's actually a pretty easy 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:07.959 shot to hit. 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:16.720 What you got cash or huh. 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:20.240 Man, I got something better than cash. 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.240 This is from the movie Lords of Dogtown. It's about 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:24.759 the invention of modern skateboarding. 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.360 These are You're a thane skateboard wheel. 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:30.840 You're a what. 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.640 They're in a skate shop. One character has dumped a 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.320 new set of skateboard wheels on the counter. You're a 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:39.520 thane wheels, You're. 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:39.880 A thane man. 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:41.479 It comes from oil, from oil. 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:44.760 With these, you can do the same hard turns that 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:45.839 you do under surfboard. 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:46.800 Yeah, yep. 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.680 You can even climb walls, man, because they grip the 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:54.560 grip they grip. The skaters attach the new wheels to 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.160 a board, climb the fence of a local school yard, 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:02.800 and take turns surfing the asphalt. Light, graceful swerves, jumps 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:04.600 and long carves, often embankment. 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:07.840 Oh my gosh, n ripping. 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.440 Yeah, insane, insane. 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:14.680 That was nineteen seventy two, and most skateboarders agree that 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.120 it was the single biggest turning point in the history 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.320 of the sport. Without the euthane wheel, the forms of 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:24.119 skateboarding we know today on vert ramps and skateparks would 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.200 simply not exist. Unlike the hard clay wheels that preceded them, 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.720 euthane wheels were not prone to sliding because euthane had 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.360 some give to it, It formed itself to the inconsistencies 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.280 in the ground and made for a smooth ride. At 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.080 the same time, in spite of being relatively soft for 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:45.480 a plastic, eurethane was extremely durable. It was one of 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:51.600 the twentieth century's miracle plastics. Flexible and inflexible, soft and strong, 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:54.600 a contradiction that could be created only in a lab. 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.120 In twenty years after, euthane changed skateboarding forever, it did 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:05.480 the same golf. This is Friday Egg Stories. I'm Garrett Morrison. 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.120 This episode is the last of three to take a 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:12.360 closer look at the golf ball, it's design, its history, 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.920 and its impact on the game. Each installment has focused 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.480 on a different revolution in golf ball technology. We've gone 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:21.720 from the gut to Percha ball in the mid eighteen hundreds, 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.399 to the haskellball in the early nineteen hundreds, and now 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.680 we've arrived in golf's modern era, when a new kind 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.800 of ball was on the rise. The ball made of advanced, 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:36.120 meticulously engineered plastics, the kinds of plastics that first appeared 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.600 on spaceships but eventually came to surround us in our 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:40.480 everyday lives. 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.200 Like the whole world is made out of plastic now, 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:48.160 so there is there is no application that plastic cannot 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.080 be used for, except maybe to eat. 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:53.800 That's Harry Brown. You heard from him in the first 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:56.680 episode of this series, and in this one he's going 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:58.920 to help me tell the story of how plastics entered 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.120 golf in the nineteen sixth took it over in the nineties, 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:04.920 and ultimately re engineered the game. 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.360 Verything for very group chemistry. 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:15.160 For the finer world. 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:19.920 We want group carmistry. 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:21.240 That's the bomber. 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.000 DuPont was founded in eighteen oh two and became well 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.400 known for manufacturing gunpowder and dynamite, but at the turn 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.200 of the twentieth century, the company moved into an exciting 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:37.840 new area, the science of plastics. In the twenties and thirties, 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:42.360 DuPont invented neoprene, nylon, and teflon. During World War Two, 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:46.159 it produced raw materials for parachutes, but it was after 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.440 the war that the company truly came into its own, 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:53.159 racking up patents for Mylar orlon lycra taivek. This was 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.000 DuPont's Better Things for better living through Chemistry era, and 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.440 a lot of those better things were plastics. 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:06.960 I just want to say one word, deal, just one word, Yes, sir, 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:08.200 I listening? 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.680 Yes? So yeah, plastics. 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.560 Here. The nineteen sixty seven film The Graduate pokes fun 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.000 at what was a real feeling in post war America 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:20.960 that the hard times were over, the economy was on 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:25.240 the rise, and the future was synthetic. Exactly, how do 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.080 you mean it's a great future in plastics? 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:29.239 Think about it? 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.480 What do you think of that? Yes, I will, I've 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:33.880 set that's a deal. 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.320 What did people hope that plastics would be and would 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:39.240 bring to the world. 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:45.679 I think it's opportunity and democracy. So it's an accessibility. 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:47.680 If I'm starting a family and I need to buy 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.720 a kitchen table, and there's a kitchen table made out 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.280 of oak, right, and that kitchen table costs seven hundred dollars, 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:56.720 And then there's a kitchen table made out of plastic, 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.839 and that table costs fifty dollars. Okay, I can live 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.600 the dream and buy a nice, big kitchen table for 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.320 my family to have dinner at made out of plastic 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.880 works in exactly the same way. It just maybe doesn't 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.520 feel as nice and look as nice and smell as nice, 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.120 but we can still we can still have dinner on it. 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.880 And I think you can apply that to any other 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:19.279 plastic object. 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.720 Aside from cheapness and mass producibility, the main appeal of plastic, 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.000 Harry Brown told me, was that it could be and 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.279 do just about anything. It was free from the shackles 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:29.840 of nature. 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.480 You can engineer it on a molecular level, and then 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.320 you can kind of shape it into basically anything that 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:37.840 you want, so it's almost like magic. You can't make 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.320 wood do anything that you want, you can't make metal 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.640 do anything that you want, but you can make plastic 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.160 do almost anything that you want, assume any shape, engineer 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:48.080 it to have greater or lesser durability. 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.320 Plastics were about the hope that science could make our 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.920 lives better, and it wasn't long before that ethos made 0:06:54.960 --> 0:07:01.320 its way into golf. But before we talk about how 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.479 fancy plastics took over the game, we should get into 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.919 some background, because this isn't just a story about technology. 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.960 It's also about two very different companies. On the one hand, 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:16.040 you had Titleist. Out of its factories near New Bedford, Massachusetts. 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:21.120 Titleist produced rubber wound core balls with blotta covers, basically 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.320 a refined version of the Haskell ball that had dominated 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.240 the trade since the beginning of the century. Titleists put 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.560 out an old fashioned product, but one known for its 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.920 quality and consistency for its appeal to good golfers. On 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:37.120 the other hand, you had Spalding, a sporting goods giant. 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.440 The company had been making golf balls in Chickapee, Massachusetts 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.120 since the late eighteen hundreds, and its style was flashier 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.400 than Titleists. Through the years, Spalding had been unafraid to 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:51.480 try new things, so by the nineteen sixties, Titleist and Spalding, 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.200 a two hour drive between them, were battling for the 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.680 biggest share of the golf ball market, and it was 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.760 in that decade, the nineteen sixties, that the modern golf 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:04.440 ball made its debut. The modern ball was essentially a 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.920 mashup of two brand new synthetic materials. The first was 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:12.080 developed by James BArch in nineteen sixty three, a complex elastomer. 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.520 BArch discovered that this material could be molded into a 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:19.040 solid one piece golf ball, but Barch's invention never really 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.840 broke through. It was cheap to produce, but it just 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:25.760 didn't perform very well. Around the same time, though, DuPont 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.960 was developing a plastic called Serlin, which was tough but pliable. 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.840 Soon a few manufacturers recognized that putting a Serlin cover 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.120 on a BArch style elastomer core might be a pretty 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:43.160 good idea. One of those manufacturers was Spalding. Spalding released 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.360 its first solid core two piece ball, the Executive, in 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:50.240 nineteen sixty seven, but four years later the company really 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.880 put it all together with the top Flight, which had 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.959 a lively elastomer core and a durable Serlind cover. The 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.960 key to this ball was spin, or rather a lack 0:08:59.960 --> 0:09:02.920 of it. The ball that came before the Wound Ball 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.560 had a lot of spin that would cause it to 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.880 climb into the air and land soft, so pros often 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.920 played very low lofted drivers, sometimes down around six degrees, 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:15.600 because they were trying to keep their drives from ballooning 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.320 on them and losing distance. The top Flight didn't have 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:24.120 that problem. Less spin meant a flatter, straighter trajectory, especially 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.680 in the wind, so you could loft up your driver, 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.960 launch the ball high and watch it bore through the air. 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.840 But there was a catch. The top flight was low 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.720 spinning off of wedges too, which meant it didn't stop 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.000 as fast on greens, and skilled players who could be 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.160 very precise with their short approaches didn't like that loss 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:47.520 of control. So ultimately you had two balls that excelled 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.640 at two different things, the top flight off the tee 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:54.600 and the old woundcore blot of covered ball around the greens. 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.880 I remember playing en amateur events in New England in 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.239 the late seventies early eight that's. 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.000 Joe Henley, who has been an executive for both Titleist 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:05.320 and Spaulding, and. 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.880 The good players would have a top flight in there 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.240 or two in their bag. If you had a two 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.720 hundred and twenty yard part three into the wind, good 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.319 players would put the titleist away for a hole and 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.120 play the top flight on that hole and on the 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.160 next toll that put the titleist back in play for 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:22.000 the rest of the round. 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.080 Soon the governing bodies ruled that you couldn't switch the 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.120 make and model of your ball mid round, so good golfers, 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.480 including almost every PGA tour player, stuck with the wound ball, 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.720 whereas many amateurs, maybe not as concerned with spin on 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:39.040 their wedges, jumped on the Elastramer and Serlin train, roughly speaking, 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:41.959 Titleist for the pros, top Flight for the Joe's. 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:44.679 You know there was rivalry. There was no question there 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:45.360 was rivalry. 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.360 In the nineteen eighties, Joe Henley was a director of 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.440 sales at Titleist. 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:52.640 When I was a Titleist, I'd hear the praise those 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:58.000 folks in Chickape referring to Spalding's headquarters in Chickabe, Massachusetts. 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.080 You know, Spaulding was the the giant in the room, 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:02.560 you know, the other giant in the room. 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.680 Yet the two companies had very different sales strategies, each 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.840 suited to their style of product. With its premium balls, 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:14.400 Titleist wanted to do well at premium outlets, mostly pro shops. 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:15.319 At golf clubs. 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:20.120 Titleists had en course market share of forty five percent, 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.640 let's say, and then the off course golf specialty stores 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:28.040 their market share was I believe around thirty percent roughly, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.400 and the sporting good stores and mass merchants their market 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:32.320 share was much less. 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.560 Spalding, with its top Flight brand, took the opposite approach. 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.120 Spaulding, on the other hand, you know, had an on 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.640 course market share that really was maybe high teens or 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.080 possibly twenty percent at times. Golf especially store market share 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:50.199 probably thirty to thirty five, and then they dominated the 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.760 kmarts at the time or Walmarts and the sporting goods stores. 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.960 So whereas Titleist was high end and high margin, top 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.839 Flight was all about quantity and appeal. The same was 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.520 true of their marketing approaches. Titleist wanted above all to 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:06.920 be the number one ball on tour. 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.160 Absolutely matter of fact, the phrase the Titleist used was 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.920 the pyramid of influence, okay, and the pyramid of influence 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:17.600 as a triangle that the peak of that period would 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:22.400 be the PGA Tour, European Tour, LPGA Tour, Senior Tour, 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.320 et cetera. That would filter down, you know, to the 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.160 PGA Club professional they would be kind of in the 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.640 next tier. Then it would be leading amateurs. 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.439 Titleist was aiming, in other words, for breadth of influence 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:35.760 among top players. 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.520 Spaulding, on the other hand, didn't go for number most, 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:43.360 use number one. They were more advertising of stars, you know, 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:47.080 of names and of people that were could be great spokespeople. 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.000 Spokespeople like Greg Norman, who had a Spaulding logo in 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.680 his bag, and Lee Trevino often seen pitching top Flight 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:55.160 on TV. 0:12:57.720 --> 0:12:59.840 Some people think the way you tell a serious goffer 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:01.920 it's whether he pulled a certain ball out on the 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.760 first tap. Me, I'm only interested in their score card, 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.000 and players who want to score better are using the 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:07.800 top Flight Tour. 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.720 Trevino doesn't mention the name Titleist, but he might as well. 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.480 The ad is addressing the widespread feeling that good golfers 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:16.840 used Titleist balls. 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.400 Hey, the way you really tell a good golfer is 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:21.880 if he has to pull his wallet out on the 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:22.600 eighteenth green. 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:27.199 And the new tops like tour balls. 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.400 But while Titleist and top Flight were in competition, they 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:36.440 also represented a kind of balance between premium and discount, 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.520 between skilled players and average ones, and this balance gave 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.240 the game a sense of stability. Think about it. From 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.880 the late sixties to the late nineties, the strongest golfers 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.400 knowingly and willingly gave up distance off the tee in 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.400 order to gain control around the greens. It was a 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.280 natural sort of bifurcation. While most amateurs took advantage of 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:03.400 the latest and longest most pros chose not to. This 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.199 was because the modern golf ball was not yet all 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.520 things to all people. Engineers hadn't figured out how to 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:11.880 make a ball low spinning in some situations and high 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.760 spinning in others. So the hope of better things for 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:19.120 better living through chemistry wasn't fully realized in golf, but 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.760 the nineteen nineties were determined to change that. 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.000 You know, I was always a titleist. 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.840 Guy Marcomera had played a titleist ball for much of 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:36.800 his career, but in nineteen ninety six his contract was up. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:40.600 And I was friends with Payne Stewart, and he came 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.240 over one day and he said, hey, Imo, would you 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.560 ever consider maybe thinking about playing this ball? 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:47.560 And I said what ball? 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.320 It was the top flight z Belata, which in spite 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:54.280 of its name, had no blota in it. Its cover 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:57.240 was made of a soft serlin called zenthane, and the 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.600 cores was solid elastomer piece ball. 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.040 And I said, you know, I never thought about that 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:04.880 pain He goes, oh, look, I'm playing it. 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:05.640 It's a good ball. 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:07.440 And I knew at one point I believe Greg Norman 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:08.440 might have been playing it. 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.760 If Mark was skeptical. You couldn't blame him. Although players 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.400 like Lee Trevino and Jumbo Ozaki had used the two 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.720 piece ball to great effect, Payne Stewart hadn't been as successful. 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:21.760 Three years earlier, Stuart had signed a huge deal with 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.560 Spaulding and he had really struggled with his top flight equipment. 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.560 Some thought he had chosen money over results. PGA Tour 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:31.680 player Scott Hoak once told a reporter, after playing a 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.000 good ball, now he's got to play a range ball. 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.520 So Mark had some questions for Pain about the Ziebelata. 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:39.880 You know, how is it like out of the rough? 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:42.320 Are you going to hit more flyers or this or 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.080 that because of the solid construction, And he goes, no, 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:48.320 not at all, absolutely not. It's not like a pinnacle 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.720 or a hot dot or any of these balls that 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:52.280 you know would go really far. 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.000 And he was right. So I started trying it. 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:56.760 I liked it. 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:01.680 Meanwhile, Joe Henley was the new director of professional Relations 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.800 at Spaulding and in early ninety six he had his 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:05.680 eye on Marcomera. 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:08.720 He won the tournament champions when it was held at 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.840 La Costa, opened the Europe with a win. I remember 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.640 running into the PGA show that year and he was 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.040 still not under contract to the titleist, so Joe got 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:18.440 to work. 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.000 By March, Mark was playing the top flight Ziblada and 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.960 by April he was signing a new contract with Spaulding. 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.280 I remember we signed his endorsement agreement at a house 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.720 who was running in Augusta. There were three people at 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.120 the table. It was Mark and me and Mark's farther Bob, 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.120 was witness on the contract. It was quite a step 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.560 for him. But you know the tour players, people that 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.200 have changed the equipment out there for money or quickly 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.080 without really debugging stuff. The failures are some of them 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.880 are pretty significant, right without naming names. So Mark was 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.960 he debugged it. He was, you know, one hundred percent 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.280 comfortable to product by the time he signed up. 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.400 And when Mark signed, Joe had some inside news for. 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:02.040 Him and he goes, you know, Mark, we have this 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.879 other ball that's coming down the pipeline. We don't have 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.080 a name for it yet, but it's going to be 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:11.600 a prototype ball. We're getting approval right now from the USGA. 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.679 And towards the end of the year they called me 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:16.959 and they said they had the ball ready. It was approved. 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:19.760 It was the ball that would eventually be named the 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:24.400 Top Flight Strata. Now, for a long time manufacturers had 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.200 claimed that their new ball went farther off the tee 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.280 and spun more around the greens, but the Strata was 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.720 one of the first to actually do both of those things. 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.520 Reason being that it was a three piece ball with 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.080 a core, a cover and a mantle layer between them. 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.159 And it was the basis of it was to have 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.560 a multi multi layer construction. 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.920 Dean Snow was a plastics engineer for Titleist, and right 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.439 away he saw that the Strata was starting to solve 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.840 the longtime problem of spin off of different clubs. 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.920 When you looked at wound golf balls, if you looked 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.920 at your wedge spin, it was very high and your 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:03.359 driver's spin was very high. 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:04.919 Okay, so it's high and high. 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:07.320 And when you took two piece golf balls, the driver's 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.680 spin was very low, but the wedge spin was very low. 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:12.560 So the goal was to say, how do you go 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:16.040 from this low driver up to this high wedge. 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:17.240 How do you make that happen. 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.600 That's where the multiple layers come in. You see different 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.520 parts of the golf ball determined spin for different kinds 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:24.400 of shots. 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:25.760 When you hit a golf ball. 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.480 With a driver, you can press the ball about one 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.920 third of the diameter. So that's where everything happens. It's 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.399 the driver, it's the spin rate, it's the ball speed comes. 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:35.920 In from the core. 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:38.760 Now, when you hit with a wedge, the cover is 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.880 very thin, very soft, and a firm mantle, so you're 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:43.840 not getting into the core with a wedge. 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:44.600 You're pinching. 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.160 And what happens is the ball will have a tendency 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.760 to pinch the soft cover to the firm mantle to 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.399 the hard club and it rolls on the face. So 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.080 when you pinch it, it rolls on the face. That 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.560 creates a low launch with high spin. So the layers 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.879 can troll the spin throughout the ball. The core is 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:05.000 really your driver, and as you work out to the 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.760 outside cover that your wedge and everything in the middle 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.360 has a model that you can predict. So you said 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.719 to me, hey, I want a golf ball and make 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.080 the eight iron spin be higher. I would work on 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:17.880 the layers with the eight iron has impact and change 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:18.760 the spin upward down. 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.560 So it's like different balls depending on how much a 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:25.280 certain club compresses it. I guess like different different balls 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:26.920 within the ball become active. 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.480 That's correct, exactly right. You activate the layer based on 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:31.840 the angle of your club. 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.120 And the top flight strata was proof of that concept. 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.440 It created what Dean calls a spin curve. 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.360 Strata was you know, to credit it's a tough fight 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:44.720 on this strata was kind of the first that change 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.879 that spin curve. It showed that the multi layer was 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.040 able to drop the spin but still keep the wedge 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.159 spin high. So it showed that you could create a 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:55.560 spin curve you know in there throughout the set if 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.040 you plot driver through sand wedge and you go low 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.200 to high on spin two, he says Low who wound 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.800 ball's high high. This showed you could actually change the 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.600 curve of driver spin eight I and spin wet spin. 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.560 You could actually have different things based on having multiple wlayers. 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:12.560 And Mark o'meira was a fan. 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.480 The first thing I noticed was I didn't lose any distance, 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.560 but I felt like the softness, the feel around the 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:23.560 greens putting it pitch shots, chips shots, you know, still 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:24.040 in the wind. 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:24.960 It was very good. 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:29.240 So the overall aspect of it I thought was better 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.160 and so I felt like I was playing a more 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:33.120 superior product. 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:35.440