ATOMIZER
Maybe it does take a rocket scientist to build a better golf ball. Over the past decade, major manufacturers have turned to aerospace experts to help perfect the flight of the little white orb. US Golf Association rules say that a ball must be at least 1.68 inches in diameter and weigh no more than 1.62 ounces. Oh yeah, and it has to be a sphere. Other than that, the sky's the limit. Enter Callaway, which this spring is introducing a super-engineered ball that replaces traditional dimples with a honeycomb of hexagons. In tests with golf pros, under a series of different weather conditions, the HX Red flew a crucial 10 yards farther than the competition. Here's how it works.
All About The Hexagon In place of a conventional ball's 300 to 500 dimples, the HX Red has a "tubular lattice network" of 220 hexagons and 12 pentagons. The lattice solves an ancient problem of golf ball flight: how to reduce drag. The favorite 19th-century ball, the guttie, was a smooth sphere molded from Malaysian gutta-percha gum. Duffers prized its low cost but discovered it didn't travel as far as its leather-stitched predecessor. Ball makers began indenting brand-new gutties - and marveling at how much farther they flew. In 1908, English engineer William Taylor patented the dimple pattern that became standard.
Smooth Operator A regular dimpled ball reduces spherical surface area to about 25 percent; the rest consists of indentations that produce a so-called turbulent boundary layer, which smooths airflow around the ball and cuts down on drag. The genius of Callaway's lattice network: The pattern covers 100 percent of the ball, creating the most efficient aerodynamics yet possible. Designers optimized the depth of the hexagons - settling on 0.0083 of an inch - allowing maximum lift for low-speed pitch shots without increasing drag on drives.
Maximum Control The outer layer that forms the lattice pattern, just 0.03 inches thick, is molded from soft thermoset polyurethane. This cover helps the golfer control the ball. On contact with the club face, the soft polymer compresses like a sponge and has less tendency to kick off the club, especially on shorter shots that call for maximum control.
Hard And Fast The second layer - the 0.0525-inch ionomer boundary - is harder and slightly thicker than the cover. The more forcefully you hit a golf ball, the more the ball is compressed. (A typical male pro swings his driver about 100 mph; the ball leaves the club head about 160 mph.) When the energy of the club reaches the harder second layer, it is translated into kinetic force, causing the ball to travel quicker and longer off the club face.
Explosive Reaction The core of the HX, 1.515 inches of polybutadiene and tungsten, is the ball's engine room. When you strike the ball hard off the tee or in the fairway, the rubber and heavy metal (a recent innovation in golf ball design) go to work. The resulting explosion of energy can carry the ball an average of 280 yards.
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