Nearly two weeks ago, I wrote an article about the Polara golf ball, a newly redesigned ball that is said to correct slices and hooks off the tee by as much as 75 percent. I tried to slice and hook the ball without much success. Then I went to a driving range, where I approached other golfers and told them I had a ball that wouldn’t slice.
Almost universally, the reaction was: “Oh, yeah? I bet I can slice it.”
Guys were lining up for the chance. “Let me at it,” they said.
I never knew this, but apparently telling recreational golfers that they cannot slice a golf ball is an insult. It is an affront to their golfing identity: “Don’t tell me I can’t hit a ball poorly!”
It is strange, or maybe not, that we are so connected to our failures in golf that any suggestion that we cannot fail at a basic golf task is disrespectful. Only in golf could we have a conversation like this:
Me: “I’ve got something here that will make it so you no longer disappoint yourself on the golf course.”
Average golfer: “Don’t be silly, that’s impossible.”
What would Freud, or Fred Funk, say about that?
The other interesting and accidental experiment I conducted while writing the Polara ball article was asking people if they would use it.
Everyone said they would until I told them it had an asymmetrical dimple pattern, which meant it did not conform to the Rules of Golf. Most golfers, about three-fourths, changed their answer. They would not play with an “illegal” ball.
That’s what they said. However, only one or two declined to take a free sample, and most asked for a few balls. They wanted it for a parent, a friend or a neighbor. A few confessed that if things were going really bad on the course, they would like to have a self-correcting ball in the bag to restore their confidence for a few holes.
I took boxes of the Polara ball to my office, to my club and to a cocktail party with golfers. Not too many people wanted the ball, although people circled around it and stared as if it were the Hope Diamond. They would hold it in their hand as if it had curative powers and rub it as if it were a genie’s lamp. But then they would put it back in the box.
I left the balls on a table in an open box in each setting as the crowd scattered — back to work, to play nine holes or to eat dinner. By the end of the day in each case, the box was empty.