Cleveland Inventions: The Haskell Golf Ball Added Distance

Without Coburn Haskell, you’d never get a chance to shank a ball into the water at Manakiki Golf Course. Patented on April 11, 1899, by the local businessman and sportsman, the Haskell golf ball changed the game. The ball, which was the first golf ball to have a rubber-wound core, became notorious for the increase in distance it achieved compared to the gutta-percha ball that was being used at the time. Today, the Haskell Golf Ball Co. is headquartered in Cleveland and continues to work on innovations to the game of golf.

Why It Matters: Not only did the ball revolutionize the game of golf, it also made the sport more popular and opened the pathway to the advanced ball technology golfers use today.