Grade•a•Ball: If you'd like to make more putts!

One of the most compelling bits of golf legend, and one that's actually true, is Ben Hogan's practice of floating balls in a bathtub full of warm water and epsom salts. He would spin the balls and mark the spot that came to the top. Then, he'd spin the ball again to make sure that the same spot didn't settle in the same position.

This was a simple and fairly effective way of determining if a ball was balanced. Now, we'd all like to hope that modern golf balls make tests like this and tests of a ball's sperical nature irrelevant. That would be a poor assumption...

I saw the Grade•a•Ball system a while back and it got me thinking: Would these guys actually go to the trouble of making something like this if every ball was round?

So, I got a hold of a Grade•a•Ball to see for myself. I was impressed and a little dismayed. While none of my new Titleists failed to pass easily though the green plate, a number of the only slightly used balls in my bag had to either be forced or simply could not be made to pass through the green ring. Into the shag-bag for those pellets.

The Grade•a•Ball is so simple yet it performs what should be seen as an essential task. It allows a player to be sure that his scoring tool is true. Talk about basic...everyone needs one of these in their bags. The Grade•a•Ball also makes it easy to scribe a neat line around their ball (the kit includes a little red mini-Sharpie). While I'm not a really big fan of lines on balls, I did use the feature to mark some balls for practice on the greens.

Do you want to make more putts? Buy a Grade•a•Ball and be surprised.