Can Nike do for golf balls what it did for athletic shoes? No doubt that is what the company is looking to it, as it unveiled its new 20XI premium golf ball franchise. And yes, there even a “swoosh” adorned on the side, but from the outside these new balls otherwise look just like every other golf ball.
What makes these balls stand out is what out is that these feature innovative golf ball technology that will reportedly dramatically enhance the performance of golfers around the world and, at the same time, propel golf ball manufacturing into an entirely new level of innovation. Those are big claims, but again this is coming a company that has delivered on its past bold statements.
The Nike 20XI golf ball features a combination of proprietary technology that has actually never before been seen in the golf industry, and more importantly is the result of four years of collaborative research and development between Nike Golf’s golf ball engineers and a team of material and science experts at DuPont. Together they went to the core of creating a golf ball, as in the actual core and opted to bounce out the old conventional rubber core with a radically new resin material. Rubber has been the traditional core for years, so the switch to resin is quite a big deal.
The new DuPont HPF resin is based on an advanced ionomer technology in which acid terpolymer resins are fully neutralized together with high levels of organic acids creating metal salts in a reactive process.This resin material is a highly neutralized polymer that has the promise of being a faster and lighter material engineered to produce longer distance and more controlled shots.
Two Nike sponsored players, Stewart Cink and Francesco Molinari have already gotten on board to tee off with the new balls.
We haven’t heard of any complaints that would make the balls illegal for pro use either. Apparently, despite a different material inside, at their core these are still golf balls. The Nike 20XI franchise will launch two versions of the ball, the 20XI-X (tour-level distance) and 20XI-S (tour-level spin). The new golf balls will be sold in retail stores in April 2011. So if you’re looking to go the distance, it might time to take a swing at these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPsU3qcQHXo