From featheries to titanium: how golf equipment changed.

The ball

Wood and feathers

Smithsonian Magazine says the earliest man-made golf balls yet found are hardwood spheres from 14th-century Scotland's east coast; that is a single source. Next came the featherie, a leather case, usually cowhide, stuffed with goose feathers. Smithsonian dates it to the early 1600s, and the Golf Historical Society of Canada gives the "featherie period" as 1618 to 1850.

The gutty

In the 1840s Robert Paterson, a young Scottish divinity student, made a ball from gutta-percha, the dried gum of a tree. Smithsonian says the gutty was bouncier, easier to control and cheaper than the featherie. The story that Paterson found the gutta-percha as packing around a statue sent from Asia is told by Smithsonian and Wikipedia but is not proven. The date of the invention varies:

Popular histories say players found that scuffed gutties flew better, which led makers to mark the surface on purpose, including with raised-dot "bramble" patterns. The dates of that change could not be confirmed.

The wound ball

LINKS Magazine says that in 1898 Coburn Haskell of Cleveland, working with Bertram Work of B.F. Goodrich in Akron, developed a ball of rubber thread wound round a core. The patent was issued in April 1899, on the same day John Gammeter was granted one for a thread-winding machine. The Haskell Golf Ball Company was formed in 1901, the year Walter Travis won the U.S. Amateur with a Haskell, and Sandy Herd won the 1902 Open with one. Smithsonian quotes Bobby Jones calling the ball the most important development in the history of the sport. Smithsonian also says a ball called "The Dimple", one of the first with aerodynamic dimples, was patented in 1905. LINKS says wound balls stayed the favourite of professionals and amateurs until the early 2000s.

British and American sizes

Golf Compendium sets out how one ball size came about:

• Early 1900s: the USGA and R&A agree a ball weight of 1.62 ounces. Golf Compendium calls it a minimum; the current Equipment Rules treat 1.620 ounces as a maximum, with no minimum.
• Early 1930s: the USGA moves to a minimum diameter of 1.68 inches; the R&A keeps 1.62 inches.
• Early 1970s: a compromise 1.66-inch ball is proposed, then withdrawn in 1973.
• 1974: the R&A requires the 1.68-inch ball at The Open, while its other events still allow the smaller one.
• 1 January 1990: the R&A adopts the 1.68-inch minimum, and ball size is the same worldwide.

The current Equipment Rules (Part 4) still set a ball weight of no more than 1.620 ounces and a diameter of no less than 1.680 inches. The R&A says the Overall Distance Standard that limits how far a ball may go was introduced in 1976 and updated in 1980, 2002 and 2004.

Shafts

• Hickory: the Golf Historical Society of Canada says hickory shafts were brought into Scotland from the Americas in 1826, a single source's date.
• Steel: National Club Golfer says steel shafts were invented in the late 1890s but many golfers stayed loyal to hickory. The USGA legalised them in 1924, according to LINKS and the Canadian society. National Club Golfer dates the R&A's approval to 26 November 1929, with rules allowing all players to use them in 1930. The Canadian society says the R&A's change was hastened after the Prince of Wales played St Andrews with steel-shafted clubs in 1929, which we could not confirm as the cause. Billy Burke, in 1931, was the first U.S. Open winner with steel shafts.
• Graphite: Wikipedia says Frank Thomas invented the graphite shaft in 1969 at Shakespeare Sporting Goods, with Union Carbide; other accounts say 1968, and several agree it was shown at the January 1970 PGA Merchandise Show. Geoff Shackelford's 2021 remembrance quotes USGA chief executive Mike Davis describing Thomas, later the USGA's technical director, as its creator.

The 14-club limit

LINKS Magazine says that in late 1934 PGA of America president George Jacobus asked the USGA whether the number of clubs would be limited. Lawson Little had won the U.S. and British Amateurs of 1934 and 1935 carrying nearly 30. At the end of 1936 the USGA and R&A announced a limit of 14, and LINKS says nobody knows why that number was chosen.

The effective date differs by source. LINKS gives 1938 for both bodies. Golf Compendium, in a search summary, gives 1 January 1938 for the USGA and 1 May 1939 for the R&A. A story that Bobby Jones and Tony Torrance averaged their own club counts, 16 and 12, after seeing a player with 32 clubs at the 1936 Walker Cup is a legend; Golf Compendium notes there is no documentary evidence for it.

The limit is still in force as Rule 4.1b of the 2023 Rules of Golf, in effect from 1 January 2023: a player must not start a round with, or have during it, more than 14 clubs. The R&A says the next edition is due on 1 January 2028.

Wedges, putters and irons

Gene Sarazen claimed to have invented the modern flanged sand wedge and first used it at the 1932 Open at Prince's, Sandwich, which he won, according to Wikipedia. The same article notes earlier lofted clubs, including a concave-faced sand club associated with Bobby Jones that was later banned, so the invention is disputed.

Golf Magic says Karsten Solheim filed a patent application for his putter head on 23 March 1959 in Redwood City, California, and calls it the first heel-toe balanced putter; the "ping" sound named the company. His first cavity-back iron, the Ping 69, dates from 1961. Golf Magic dates the Anser putter to 1966, its name suggested by Louise Solheim by dropping the "w" from "answer"; MyGolfSpy, in a search summary, gives a patent date of 21 March 1967. Shackelford records a 1985 antitrust lawsuit that came out of the USGA's dispute with Ping over square grooves in its Eye2 irons.

Metal and oversized woods

Wikipedia says Gary Adams founded TaylorMade in McHenry, Illinois, in 1979 with one product, a 12-degree metal wood, and calls him the "Father of the Metal Wood". Wikipedia's general history article dates the first metal "wood" to the early 1980s, which conflicts with that 1979 launch.

Australian Golf Digest says Callaway's oversized stainless-steel Big Bertha driver was unveiled at the PGA trade show in Orlando in January 1991, after Dick Helmstetter made the first prototype head in summer 1990, and that production heads were 190 cubic centimetres. It says the club became the world's best-selling club within a year and began the era of oversized heads; those are the magazine's claims.

The rule changes, by date

These are the main dated changes in the research for this site. Some are Model Local Rules, which apply only when a Committee adopts them for a competition.

Golf.com reported on 23 September 2026 that the bodies had proposed three more elite-only Model Local Rules, covering ball distance, driver spring-like effect and club length, which like any Model Local Rule would apply only where a Committee adopted them, with comments due by 21 October 2026. These are press reports: the primary notice was not confirmed, and on 20 October 2026 they were proposals, not adopted rules. The ball testing change page follows that story in detail.

Whether a particular ball or driver head conforms is decided by the R&A and USGA, not by this site or a maker's marketing. Check the current List of Conforming Golf Balls and List of Conforming Driver Heads, explained on the conforming equipment page.