A Day at the Bridgestone Ball Factory!

BALLS! We love em. Ever wonder how Bridgestone golf balls are made? Ever wonder if the kind of ball you play reallllllly matters? Aaron and Hannah took a stroll to Covington, Georgia to learn from the team at Bridgestone Golf about all things ball construction, testing, and fitting. While we couldn’t show you everything, enjoy a special glimpse into the Wonka Factory of golf.

Special thank you to @bridgestonegolfinc for having us out!

balls I love them the meat kind the big spiky one outside of Epcot you know what I’m saying oh oh the fancy little party where you put on a gown and feel like a lady those big red cement set of Target all great but there is one Superior ball and it is golf balls that’s right I do have some questions though what’s in them how do they go so far does the kind of ball you play actually affect an amateur golfer game I don’t know yeah Bridgestone is the number one ball fitter in the world and we’re here at Bridgestone HQ to answer some of those questions get the ball rolling shall we you get it a golf ball [Music] P to see how golf balls are made we went inside the Bridgestone Factory to get the scoop on the process look at all this huh minus the top secret parts of course so the entire process of making a golf ball from start to finish for us M you got or n steps depending on what ball we’re making we’re going to start from a block of polymer rubber we’re going to mix it with a bunch of uh chemicals we’re going to create your first layer of synthetic rubber yeah this is nice do you watch stranger things I do watch stranger things this looks like the guy in stranger things so we’re going to take the rubber at that point and we’ll run it over here behind you into Extrusion we’re going to put it into a flat sheet and what we’re really trying to do is compress all the air out of yeah this got so small it did get small you don’t want to full of hot air I do not want no I’m full of hot air but but I don’t need my golf ball full of hot air it gets it I get it you get it that’s what you get when you’re a theater a theater guy are you a theater guy I am a theater guy it’s true this is the greatest day ever so we’re going to take that we’re going to run it through the extruder we call it the spaghetti machine and that’s the beginning of the center core of the golf ball for you yeah it’s more like a rigoni it is kind of like a rigon Ron after rigatoni we’re going to take it over to our cure press operation and we’re going to vulcanize that slug from the outside in yes um so we can make the center core of your golf ball that’s that’s what gives you the B in the golf cool we go from rigon to meatball right all right so once we go from that process we’re going to take it over into our core grind area we’re going to grind off a layer of the outside of that golf ball we’ll send it to our s lines we’re going to put the first layer of molding around it and then we’re going to grind it down yeah okay so you grind it down twice right we’re going to grind it down twice lot of grinding a lot of grinding happening at Bridget after that we’ll put that white injection on there right and that’s what you know as the golf ball like this is like a piece of cheese on top I’m seeing this all as like a pasta dish right yeah we got stress ball stranger things roll out the pasta ratoni meatball we got cut this in half I’m not sure what that one would be he we’re checking the internal temp oh we’re checking the internal temp on the meatball and this at the top is that that Mazel it’s right on top richone a fully balanced meal richone there you have it folks golf balls are pasta lots of machines switches knobs and marble RAC tracks all leading to a gorgeous final package at the end of the [Music] day that’s all we got going on here so this is uh Robo 6B this is our you know Workhorse for all of our testing so each month we do our quality testing and we’ll load up um three types of golf balls we’ll hit our um spin category a premium category and then our value category and and make sure they’re flying right super cool piece of equipment and uh real reliable it feels like you’re stepping farther away from the machine are you scared of it just trying to give it room hopefully it doesn’t turn on on us does it it will not no we should be good are you sure I’m [Music] positive all right so this is uh one of the golf balls we always like to show to people when they do a tour with us um you’ll see it’s actually the same um it’s the same construction same construction as our calibration Ball but no dimples so you’ll see the difference there smooth and a dimple in sight exactly big frown ball so we always like to ask if you have any guesses to what might happen when we hit it oh you at home I see will it go left right straight you decide maybe it will explode probably not hopefully not H if you guess straight down you’re a winner we didn’t really give you that option initially so if you did you’re smarter than both of us combined what’s next absolutely so our next one we got is a half and half so we got half dimples and half no dimples when I hit this one what I’m going to actually do is put them on the left so if you’re standing behind the robot I’ll be hitting with dimples on the left side so if you have any guesses for what will happen with that one any guesses left right straight go up go down explode hopefully not explode if you guess left smarty pants alert that’s what happened did you don’t lie cuz you know who knows if you lied and bridg down we [Music] know right now all right we have seen how golf balls are made we got to test some golf balls with robot that is any second away from becoming sentient I wash a lot of Black Mirror doesn’t end well now it is time to get fitted what does that mean I don’t know let’s find out uh what the hell’s going on all right Aaron we have Auto here which is our autonomous ball fitting machine Auto is a little play on autonomous so he will help me get you fit to the right golf ball for your game you said you’ve never been fitted before correct so what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at all your numbers off the driver and we’re going to give give you a golf ball that’s based on all those metrics that fits your game perfectly cool sounds good I got to warm up it only takes Auto three shots to determine the right ball for you only three robots are not scary at all and I am in no way concerned for Humanity’s future I took a few warm-up swings then we went for it all right baby pool what do we got so swing speed was 117 ball speed was right at 170 distance was 181 that’s just a carry distance real carry 281 281 carry not 181 carry so 281 carry cool you’re well over 300 in total distance 302 1.5 smash Factor KD Back Spin still low 20 2500 which is good we want to stay in those 2,000 we don’t want to get up to the 3,000 number so really good numers so far cool makes sense to me what is smash Factor I’ve never heard that in my life smash factor is a calculation from swing speed to ball speed so it it’s it’s divided into each other so the closer you get to a 1.5 smash Factor the better you’ve hit the ball I mean you can get over a 1.5 but borderline the face of the driver is too hot to even get over a 1.5 okay I thought it was like Charisma or sex appeal it’s when he said I have a 1.5 smash Factor that’s super hurtful I’m at least a six no no no 1.5 is is like a 10 in the smash Factor world you’re a 10 I’m a 10 yeah let’s try to juice Auto a little bit there you go I’m go Martin bergener do you do the all right that was hammered gosh that hurt my back a lot where did that go okay uh this has been your best shot so far 118 swing speed uh 170 ball speed 291 carry 2,800 spin love the launch 10 two launch Smash Factor down a little bit cuz you’re swinging out of your shoes but that’s to be expected but just a bullet straight down the middle 291 carry I’m going start swinging like that yeah yeah you should do that every time yeah okay one more came across it that 265 carry yeah 118 still swing speeds 118 smash factor a little down and then smash So based on the over 5 million swings that we’ve gathered over the years all the ball fittings it’s run through the algorithm and the golf ball is going to recommend is the tbx really good ball speed great distance the tbx is designed for a little bit more distance than mine played by Tiger Woods here above us and fits your game so you and tiger both play this golf ball yeah me and tiger are the same exactly that’s crazy that’ll do it from Bridgestone HQ learned so much about how to make a golf ball how to test a golf ball how to get fitted for a golf ball what golf ball to play what did you learn uh I learned that Bridgestone golf balls are the same as pasta you know pasta are balls balls are pasta kind of reminds me the time I got a little F tips see at Macaroni Grill and walk back in the kitchen thing you was a bathroom H it’s incredible overwhelming but amazing yeah luckily I did not try and eat any balls here can’t say the same about the meatballs Mac Grill now I learned I am Tiger Woods pretty much same same ball same accolades same Bacon account same body niot thanks Bridgestone thanks Bridgestone [Applause] [Music]