How could NASA make golf clubs hit harder, and golf balls fly farther?
Video from YouTube.com
In 1976, Babcock & Wilcox Co. started a partnership with the Marshall Space Flight Center to create better golf clubs using the composite materials originally used on spacecrafts. They looked at a summary file at the Marshall Space Flight Center about the physical properties of different graphite or boron-reinforced composite materials. They made golf clubs out of the composite which provided the best ratio of rigidity to flexibility, which is the key to a great golf club.
The Ben Hogan Company, based in Elyria, Ohio, wanted to design a golf ball that would fly farther, faster, and straighter. They teed off in front of NASA’s high-speed camera technology to watch the exact flight path of the golf ball, and document what they needed to change for their next golf ball.