Episode 80: A Feathery Quest with Gavin Bottrell

Well, let's get back to Project Feathery.

As I mentioned in the introduction, you're now on to the 43rd iteration of feathery ball design and manufacture.

You might walk us through what a feathery actually is.

Okay.

So, yes, it boils down to three pieces of leather.

Boils down, there was a pun there.

Yeah, good one.

Well spotted.

Three pieces of leather stitched together.

So it's two circular pieces and a rectangular piece.

So the rectangular piece is joined on its small sides to make a sort of central strip, as I call it.

And then the two circular end caps are also sewn on.

So three pieces of leather stitched together.

stuffed with feathers that's what you will read in many books that have been published particularly in the last say 50 years what i was became fascinated with was um how were featheries described way back when so I've also looked back into the oldest records of golf, almost written records that there is.

And we can go back to the early 1500s, 1502.

You've got King James IV of Scotland.

He's buying golf balls and golf clubs in Perth in Scotland.

And what I believe that shows is he's buying feathery golf balls in early 1500s because of the relative prices of those balls to the price of a club.

I know from personal experience how many hours it takes me to make a golf club from scratch.

And hence, I can relate that to, okay, let's say, I can't remember exact the values of 1502, but certainly by the early 1800s, you might say a golf club was costing 12 Scottish shillings, okay? And a golf ball was costing four Scottish shillings.

I think that's the correct figures.

So a golf ball is costing a third of the price of a club.

That is quite a sophisticated article.

What you will read in a lot of books is that the first golf balls were wood.

I personally don't find any evidence for that.