In the golf ball design world of air pressure, turbulence, and aerodynamics, surface structurestructure of the surface is a essential design element. There are several historical events that have contributed the design and make-up of the golf ball. Over a period of hundreds of years, the optimum design and composition of the golf ball has been achieved, based on scientific research . The humble golf ball is a good example of the evolution of the history of aeronautical engineering.

During the early days of the game of golf on the eastern coast of Scotland, most players used hand-made equipment in order to play the game which was a more disorganized and less formal than it is today. In these early days, the first golf clubs and golf balls are made of wood.

feather golf ball was first introduced and made popular. This form of the golf ball gained the nickname of the "Featherie". This feather golf ball was a handcraftedhand made golf ball made with goose feathers securely pressed into a horse or cowhide skin. The whole process was carried out while the ball was still wet. As the ball dried out, the the out skin would shrink and the feathers expanded to form a hardened golf ball.

Because these types of golf balls were specially handcrafted, they could easily cost more than the golf clubs. As a result, only only people with money had the money to play the game of golf during this early period.

The next version , to become popular was the Guttie golf ball. This ancient type of golf ball was made from the rubber like sap from the Gutta Percha tree is grown in the tropics. These Guttie balls could be easily formed into a sphere when hot. When they became cooler, they kept their shape and could then be used as a golf ball. With its rubber nature, Guttie balls could be produced cheaply and could be easily re-cycled by reheating and reshaping.

In a comparison between the two earliest forms of golf balls, the feather golf ball was known to go much further than the rubber Guttie. The reason for this difference was eventually identified as being due to the difference in surfaces. The smooth surface of the Guttie limits the capacity of the golf ball to cover more distance.

With this scientific understanding, the manufacturers of golf balls eventually produced with balls with the "dimples" that are found on modern golf balls in use today.

Dimples are put onto golf balls so as to minimise the aerodynamic drag, which acts on the ball and is higher if the surface were totally smooth. The cause of this is because smooth balls, when travelling through the air, leave a huge pocket of low-pressure air in its wake therefore creating drag. The drag acts as a brake and the ball slows down.

But in contrast, by having dimples on golf balls, the difference in pressure gets lowered and the drag is reduced. These dimples create turbulence in the air around the golf ball. This, in turn, makes the air clasp the golf ball more closely. By doing so, the air flows in to the wake created by the ball instead of flowing past it. This results in a smaller wake and less drag. So the ball travels further.

Dimples also help players to put backspin on a shot thereby making the golf ball break off on the putting green.

The idea of placing dimples on golf balls can be traced back to the Gutta Percha phase of development. It was Coburn Haskell who came up with the one-piece rubber cored ball encased in a Gutta Percha coating. It was during this time that players first observed how their shots became more and more predictable the more they played with the same ball. They noticed that the more the balls became scuffed the more precisely and further they could hit it.

When William Taylor applied the dimple pattern to a Haskell ball in 1905, golf balls finally took on their modern form. So the dimples came into being. From then on, dimpled golf balls were officially part of every golf tournament. In 1921, the dimpled golf balls took on a standard size and weight.

Nowadays, there is a large choice of golf balls to fit different golf games and conditions. Some golf balls offer greater control, while some others offer greater length. However else these golf balls vary, they all have one attribute in common and that is the dimple. Golf balls are not just items of golf equipment; they are a paradigm of a physics concept!

Roger Titley is a successful webmaster who manages http://www.newgolfputter.com which is dedicated to all aspects of golf