This article is classified "Fictional"
The outer shell of the golf ball is inevitably a thin layer of plastic,
dimpled to provide aeronautical sympthasis [1] and usually imprinted with
the name of a local politician. This plastic, actually an incredibly tough
composite of aluminum, fiberglass and ceramic tiling, is inevitably cast in
a simple and dignified white. The few golf balls that are not white are
usually not golf balls, but government listening devices and radio
transmitters [2]. Early in golf's history, golf balls were sewn from cloth
and filled with straw, or composed of tightly-packed soil. For obvious
reasons, neither construction has lasted to the present day.
Within this layer of unassuming plastic lies the first of three rubber
sheaths. Each sheath has been tested for impenetrability to a force of
3,000 lbs per square inch (in metric terms, that's almost 75.375 hectares
per photon), and the molecular structure of each sheath prevents the
passage of static charge, moisture, and even magnetic pulses!
Beneath the first sheath, a coating of Firmolon(tm) oil oozes securely
throughout its stratum. Firmolon is a space-age emulsion designed to
expand and solidify upon puncture of the outer casing, thus protecting the
golf ball's inner levels from exposure to the outside world (and
vice-versa). According to laboratory tests, a single golf ball can
withstand up to 200 millimeter-diameter punctures before the oil is
exhausted.
But Firmolon can only remain properly viscous between 40 and 70 degrees
Fahrenheit (that's between 6 and 800 degrees Centigrade). The oil is
therefore subordinated by a lead-grey jacket of hydranium. Hydranium is a
radioproactive metal alloy that maintains a constant internal temperature
of 57 degrees Fahrenheit (or 9 degrees Centigrade) and ensures that the
sealant can do its job under any meteorological condition!
Underneath the hydranium is a "wrapping" of thin but taut plastic coils.
These coils, designed to spread the impact of a golf club throughout their
length, and thus providing the golf ball with its distinctive "dead man's
spin" are, when uncoiled, almost seven miles (that's over 500 angstroms for
the metrically-dependent) in length! These coils are also capable of
recording the kinetic history of a golf ball along their length, preserving
every bounce, stroke and "hole" for up to ten years. One wonders who is
rich enough to play back these recordings? But let's move on!
Beneath the coil "mantle" is the second rubber sheath, and under that is a
magnetic suspension projector array. You see, the multiple layers of
compacted and concentrated materials within a golf ball would normally
bring the ball's weight up to almost ten pounds (that's 5.715 cubits for
our friends in the godless European Alliance). So the projector array is
needed to "hang" the golf ball securely within the magnetic field of the
Earth, removing the vast majority of the ball's net mass and weight and,
incidentally, providing the golf ball with the ability to go "hog wild"
(remaining motionless in the air for almost ten seconds and then racing,
ferret-like, for the nearest hole) when struck at precisely the right
angle.
The array surrounds a layer of delicious chewing gum, inserted into every
ball as a tribute to Hevi MacHinery, the man who first conceived of the
modern golf ball. Hevi supposedly constructed the first golf ball in 1769
and, lacking the technical skill necessary to produce extruded rubber,
filled most of the inside of his balls with his own used chewing gum.
Despite the absurdity of this practice, Hevi shot a hole-in-one every game
of his life, and there isn't a golfer today who isn't willing to deal with
a bit of chewing gum if it means duplicating old MacHinery's luck with a
ball!
Within the gooey, disgusting gum layer, is a razor-thin but crucial film of
pure gold. This film is necessary in that it is the only material capable
of holding back the layer underneath: the picovirus. Picoviruses are
dangerous subatomic bacteria that feed on the energy inherent in all living
matter, and it is likely that these li'l nasties are the cause of many a
tale of "antimatter in golf balls". After all, any living tissue exposed
to a picovirus would quickly be consumed and would degenerate into formless
glop. Fortunately, the golf ball picovirus can only live for a few minutes
in the open air (nitrogen being toxic to them). When the golf ball is
struck by a speeding club, the outer layer of picoviruses absorb the shock
and are destroyed, at which point the nearby specimens eat their deceased
neighbors and quickly grow to fill the void. Despite the biohazard, no
nonliving material on Earth is as capable of withstanding repeated impact
as a generous helping of hungry (and resilient) picoviruses!
Holding back the greedy bacteria is the third and final sheath of rubber,
and within that sheath is the heart of every true golf ball. For those who
have always wondered where the word "golf" came from, the answer lies
within: a fragment of the interstellar champion-demon "G'oll'ph" (not his
real name), a shred of his/her/us/its destroyed-yet-somehow-still-alive
remains, a tiny but essential scrap of the brain-genital-carapace of this
ancient athletic diety-ace spends an eternity within the walls of a tiny
sphere of sports paraphernalia.
This being came to our world during the reign of the ancient Greek gods:
through a long and tortuous battle (during which, alas, G'oll'ph took the
losing side of the Titans), he was captured and punished with an eternity
within "the dented eggs of sport", as Hermes (the inventor of the game)
called them. In ironic dedication to the creature encased in each ball,
Hermes called them "G'oll'ph balls", and scattered them throughout the
world. Later, the story goes, a Titan named Xixi gathered the balls and
bequeathed them to a family living in what would later be known at
Scotland.
The story gets complicated at this point, going into great detail about the
Titan's relationship with his "club" and his "bag", but that's the Greeks
for you. In any case, it is the tiny fragment of this doomed and tortured
Godling that allows any genuine golf ball to fit within the spiritual
format of a game. And it is, perhaps, fitting that, at the center of any
golf ball, just as at the root of any golf game, there is a compact nugget
of terrible pain and degradation.
[1] Combining "sympathy" and "synthesis", thus creating a word that evokes
rather than explains.
[2] An obscure but rigid federal law requires these devices to be "easily
visible", but not easily recognizable, resulting in vividly concealed
electronic subterfuge.