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Golf Ball Memories

i remember the unwraping feeling only occasionally when my grandad could spare one!
otherwise it was pick ups. i did rustle up some cash to buy some yellow titleist pts after a few years not realising the price marked in the pro shop was each and not a box of 3!. :-)
then there was dunlop ddh and the good old tour edition many an hour spendt trying to make those spin during summer school hols.

thats not to mention my laminated ryder woods, ... oh how i coverted a persimmon.
 
Ah yes - how could I have forgotten Commando's - but in truth for me these were only one step up from Price's Everlasting (am I though only person to recall these?). Commando's did tend to be pretty ubiquitous.

And balata's - balls for millionaires back then, and I only ever found balata's that either had a smile the width of the Clyde estuary, or were more shape of a rugby ball than round - I guess that's why I found them.

Still got a load of 'vintage' balls in my 'practice' bag (practice in quotes as I don't ever practice - it's actually an old bag raincover into which I chuck balls when my bag get's full of stuff I find but don't hit). So still got some small balls in there.
 
pbrown7582 said:
i remember the unwrapping feeling only occasionally when my grandad could spare one!
otherwise it was pick ups. i did rustle up some cash to buy some yellow titleist pts after a few years not realising the price marked in the pro shop was each and not a box of 3!. :-)
then there was dunlop ddh and the good old tour edition many an hour spent trying to make those spin during summer school hols.

that's not to mention my laminated ryder woods, ... oh how i converted a persimmon.
Click to expand...
i had a matched set of ryder graduate woods,had them refurbished and mounted in a frame ,i gave them away to a charity auction for a local hospice,i used to take brand new balls from my dads bag and unwrap them just for that freshly painted smell,or hacksaw them in half when then got a smiley face on them,i still have loads of the older size balls that were in my dads practice bag.
 
As a late 80s / early 80s junior golfer, it was Ultras, Pinnacle Golds (for long drive comps), Titleist PTS solo and the like.

Anyone using a balata ball was a flash harry in our eyes. One lad in my club (Carl Pettersson as it happens) was the son of a Volvo executive, so at the end of every season used to be given dozens and dozens of Volvo-logoed balatas from the range at the Volvo PGA as it then was. Lucky bleeder.

Edit: meant to say, great thread this one, cheers Swingsitlikehogan
 
Ah Ultras - took a couple of boxes of these on a golfing holiday to the Algarve in 1985 - I think they were new on the market. Jeez - wh7y did I think hitting a stone was a good idea - scored well round Quinta do Lago and Villamoura Old mind so they must have been OK. the Titleist 90 (or was it the PTS?) was my ball through the 90s when I got my handicap down to SFs. Then i stopped playing for 8 yrs. When I came back it had gone - as had my ability to play to SFs :-(

Back when I started playing I can't remember bothering what ball I used - whatever I had. I thin I like the Penfold Club or Spade if I had one.

And unfortunately I don't have the ball from my first hole in one - when I eventually get one I'll keep the ball.
 
I have still got a few olduns in the loft.
Prices Everlasting - As said, they were the worst.
Spitfire - The originals were re cons due to the shortages of supplies during WW2
Kel Nagle - A bit like Spitfires and might have been re cons

A mate used to collect just Spaldings. They had to have a different name. I think he got into the twenty's.
E.g.
Top Flite
Top Flite XL
Kro Flite
Pin Flite
Molitor
etc
 
Mattyboy said:
I have still got a few olduns in the loft.
Prices Everlasting - As said, they were the worst.
Spitfire - The originals were re cons due to the shortages of supplies during WW2
Kel Nagle - A bit like Spitfires and might have been re cons

A mate used to collect just Spaldings. They had to have a different name. I think he got into the twenty's.
E.g.
Top Flite
Top Flite XL
Kro Flite
Pin Flite
Molitor
etc
Click to expand...

Ah - Spitfires yes.I can vaguely remember the marking - must go Google. Molitor's feel more recent (80s). Don't recall Kro Flite or Pin Flite.
 
Got a Pro Flite though.

When I started playing about 40 yrs ago (20p a round) - I had a steel framed canvas bag in which I carted around half a dozen or so clubs - including three or four hickory shafted clubs (including a driver, putter and chipper - a cut-down niblick I think) and a couple of lofted clubs with 'punched' faces - rather than grooved. There was a little ball pocket and I'm thinking I would probably only have about half dozen balls - four of which would be battered and cut to hell. So I didn't want to lose one of my better ones. Didn't care what it was if it was round, didn't have a split cover (cut 'marks' were not an issue) - or wasn't a PE (the rubber ball).

I can remember thinking that the American big ball thing wouldn't catch on - after all - how could you play with such a beast in the wind? Well I was right on the latter :-)
 
Do you remember the split colour Ping balls, ah man its all coming back to me.

Green & Yellow
Oronge & Black
Black & White
Red & Green
Pink & White
Blue & White
Red & White
Yellow & White
Pink & White
Purple & White

I think you get what i mean now. :-)
 
Nice thread. I started playing golf in 1980 and there are some nostalgic posts here with familiar brands.

A couple that I think haven't been mentioned are Golden Ram and the Slazenger B51 and B51XD. All very cool if you were 10 in 1980!

Tour Editions were nice. So were the Titleist 384 PTS!

Commando's were rubbish. And the Molitor was like hitting a large ball-bearing.

Happy days... I got an albatross with a Golden Ram ball in the summer of 1986. I kept it for years but now have no idea where it is which, having read this thread, is a shame.
 
I still have a commando and Molitor also found a Dunlop 65 about a year ago, but think that was one lost out of an old fella's bag rather than been lying for years. I never needed to buy a Golf Ball until i was in my late teens as i lived near a pitch n putt course and found a lot of all types and colours. And remember the rubber bands wound round them, there was a myth that the white stuff was a stink bomb.
 
early days i played with whatever i could find mostly had "stolen from brandon wood gc" on them.can't believe i used to by molitors,might aswell of played with pebbles out my garden.moved up to top flites.nowadays its mostly nikes,still don't bloody last me very long
 
I'll introduce an alternative thought on the same theme - finding golf balls.

As my starter for ten. For years I was a junior member of Dunkeld & Birnam GC in Perthshire (it was a holiday course for me - £25 a year). We used to camp in a field beside the course that is now part of the golf course (my mum knows/knew the farmer). Of course when I didn't have enough time for a few holes I'd jump over the boundary fence and have a good rummage under the whin and gorse. As I was a wee lad that wasn't a problem - and of course you'll all know how on a slope the needles off whin and gorse get washed down and form into wee walls between the stems of the bushes - against which misdirected balls having landed in the gorse and rolled down the hill eventually stop against. The number of balls I would find!! :-).

I still grub about for balls (sad but true). If I stumble across a ball and it is sitting pretty obvious, I have a quick good look around - cos if it is obvious then there's good chance no-one has been there for a bit and I'll usually find at least another one or two within a couple of yards.

BTW - I think my record in one hunting session at D&B (old 7th, 8th and 9th) was 60 balls. If you ever played there you'll know why I found so many.

So golf ball hunting and finding memories :-)
 
Last edited:
I found some PTS 90s in my work desk the other day. (Do balls go off?)

I remember penfolds and dunlops, that was what I used with my Grandad's clubs from the 70s.

Not old, I admit, but I was reminded of Bridgestone "Precept" at the ball fitting. I loved those balls in 1990s.

I also enjoyed those double-coloured Ping balls. They were awesome. Don't know why they were developed - putting maybe?
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
I'll introduce an alternative thought on the same theme - finding golf balls.

As my starter for ten. For years I was a junior member of Dunkeld & Birnam GC in Perthshire (it was a holiday course for me - £25 a year). We used to camp in a field beside the course that is now part of the golf course (my mum knows/knew the farmer). Of course when I didn't have enough time for a few holes I'd jump over the boundary fence and have a good rummage under the whin and gorse. As I was a wee lad that wasn't a problem - and of course you'll all know how on a slope the needles off whin and gorse get washed down and form into wee walls between the stems of the bushes - against which misdirected balls having landed in the gorse and rolled down the hill eventually stop against. The number of balls I would find!! :-).

I still grub about for balls (sad but true). If I stumble across a ball and it is sitting pretty obvious, I have a quick good look around - cos if it is obvious then there's good chance no-one has been there for a bit and I'll usually find at least another one or two within a couple of yards.

BTW - I think my record in one hunting session at D&B (old 7th, 8th and 9th) was 60 balls. If you ever played there you'll know why I found so many.

So golf ball hunting and finding memories :-)
Click to expand...

Fond memories...

I was a junior member at Naas golf club in the mid 70's, when it was still just a 9 hole course. In the summer holidays dad would drop me off at 8am on his way to work, and pick me up at about 6:30pm. 3 rounds of golf, loads of practicing and, especially on Mondays, rooting around the wood that bordered the left of 1,2 & 9 when I needed a break from the golf. Didn't buy any balls for years.
 
No mention yet for the Penfold Bromford or GBD.
When as a lad I sold them and customers would ask 'what does GBD stand for?
Goes better downhill, was the sharp reply. All part of the Penfold family called Golf Ball Developments.

Prices Everlasting was the pioneer for Commando and Pinnacle as golf balls for the common man.
 
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