A new tour-level golf ball may soon have some tour pros using a sphere of a different colour.
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Like it or not, it appears the colored golf ball may be making a comeback.
Srixon recently unveiled its Tour Yellow Z-Star golf balls. The model’s not a novelty; the Z-Star is the company’s flagship premium ball. So what gives?
Why make a tour-level ball in a colour normally reserved for range balls?
For starters, the ball isn’t actually yellow, but rather a green/yellow combination. According to Chris Beck, brand manager for Srixon, studies have shown yellow to be the most visible color in the spectrum.
Additionally, studies have correlated that green/yellow colors have a calming, stress-relieving effect.
For those who think that is hogwash, Beck is quick to point out the reason talk shows have a “Green Room,” that is actually green, is to give guests a place to relax before appearing on live television.
Visibility, however, was the driving force. According to Beck, Srixon conducted several tests showing the yellow ball was easier to spot. “It was twice as easy to see at 210 yards and three times as easy to spot at 250 yards as a white golf ball,” he said.
The concept of easier-to-spot golf balls dates to the 1890s when Rudyard Kipling (author of The Jungle Book, among others) painted golf balls with red paint to make them easier to see while he enjoyed one of his favorite pastimes—snow golf. Kipling’s experiment was adequate for his purposes, but the first attempt to market a colored ball to consumers (Wilson’s Hol-Hi ball, offered in both “Canary Yellow” and “Oriole Orange” in the late 1920s) met with little success, although it may have had little to do with the hue.
Fifty years later Ping began producing golf balls, including its Ping Punch ball (now considered a collector’s item), which had hemispheres of different colours. That effort failed, but the use of coloured balls exploded when Wayne Levi (at the 1982 Hawaiian Open) and Jerry Pate (1982 Players Championship) won using orange Wilson ProStaff balls. Pate also made noise earlier in the year when he used an orange ball to card the first ace ever by a professional during the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am on Cypress Point’s famed 16th hole.
In 2005 Nike brought out its limited-edition Nike One Black-On-Black with a well-timed publicity stunt. John Cook used the ball during the Sony Open in Hawaii, and the company had four of its tour players—Stewart Cink, Justin Leonard, K J Choi and Rory Sabbatini—tee off with the black ball at TPC Scottsdale’s par-3 16th. Cink even made birdie with the ball, dropping a 30-footer during the opening round.
“It’s a good thing I found the putting surface with the tee shot,” said Cink at the time. “[The black ball] is hard to see it if you don’t hit the green.”
A bit later in 2005, Paula Creamer put a pink Precept ball in play during the final round of the Kraft Nabisco Championship and, in ensuing years, has gone on to use a pink Precept in the final round of most tournaments.
Is tour use in the future for the Srixon Tour Yellow Z-Star? Too early to tell, but Jim Furyk was intrigued enough to take a few dozen with him to try out. Tim Clark is a candidate, too. If either puts it in play, Srixon would receive some high visibility of a different kind. 
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