Corona Discharge Treatment

During the early development of the Titleist Pro V1 golf ball, forming a reliable adhesive bond between the inner cover (plastic) and outer cover (urethane) presented a major challenge in this entirely new golf ball design.

After investigating many mechanical and chemical options, Ed Hebert (now Principal of The Blue Ocean) and his Titleist colleagues designed a system to expose the entire surface of the inner cover to a plume of corona discharge. This technique excites surrounding air molecules to their plasma state via extremely high voltages, and then rotates the golf ball's inner construction into that plasma plume, chemically ionizing the plastic cover. From there, the construction is immediately dipped into the liquid urethane in a casting process, with the ionization creating strong chemical bonds between the plastic and urethane layers.

This work, which resulted in US Patent 6,315,915, was vital to the transition of the Titleist Pro V1 from a research project to a production-ready design.