When I was invited recently to club and ball facilities of one of the world’s premier equipment manufacturers, I only had four words to say: When do we leave?

Here was my chance to see, in person, the unique processes that went into the making of Srixon balls, and I jumped at it. The trip would take me to the company’s ball factory in Ichijima, about an hour outside of Osaka. Needless to say, I was as restless as a kid going to Disneyland for the first time.

Of late, Srixon (part of SRI Sports, which evolved from Sumitomo Rubber Industries) has made inroads into the lucrative world of golf balls. The Srixon Z-Star (Silver Award in the 2009 Golf Digest Singapore Hot List) and Z-Star X balls showcase the brand’s continued excellence in the field, and rounds out their efforts towards the top end of the ball market. To date, Srixon commands 35% of the ball market in Japan just behind Bridgestone with 38%, and ahead of Titleist with 15%. A rough worldwide estimate has Srixon balls taking up 20% of the Asian ball market, 20% in U.K., 15% in Australia and 2.3% in the U.S. Whichever way you look at it, these numbers speak volumes when you consider that the company has only been in the business since 1995.

After a day in Osaka, I boarded a bus that took me to the heart of where Srixon’s ball development and manufacturing takes place. Ichijima is hardly a glamorous part of Japan, or even the Osaka area. The rural landscape is nothing to write home about, but just as I began nodding off, the bus takes a turn behind a hill, and there in a valley of semi-verdant farmland, was a white building that had every nuance of a secret weapon facility James Bond movie would have been proud of. As I stepped off the bus, I couldn't help feel that Godzilla would stick his head above the hill yonder, and Ultraman would come swooping down to land a drop kick on the monster's head.

But back in real life, had as many elements of the science fiction of which we have become all too familiar from television. Srixon’s ball factory here, reeks with technology, and I could almost hear the whirring of scientist’s minds behind closed doors as I walked past the clinically clean, and church-quiet corridors in the building. (In actual fact, only part of Srixon’s R & D department is located here, the rest is situated in their headquarters in Kobe.)

The formalities of introduction, Japanese style, to the head engineers greeting me were carried out in a classroom where the details of the facility were proudly made known to me. Here are the facts:

Site area of Srixon’s Ichijima facility: 35,000 square metres
Length of testing range: 400 yards
Length of testing fairway: 320 yards
Width of testing fairway: 75 yards
Types of putting green turf: Pencross, Penlinks, Korean lawn grass and Tefton
Types of bunker sand: mountain, river, sea, powdered marble
Overall floor space of Main Analysis Centre: 1,000 square metres

It was clear to me that when it came to testing their balls, Srixon left nothing to chance.

One of the highlights of my visit here was to the Dunlop Golf Science Centre (Dunlop is a licensed brand of SRI Sports) where extensive testing is done on Srixon balls. I was lead into a small room with tables chock filled with monitors and switches, making me feel like I was in some sort of command centre ready to launch missiles into enemy territory. But the only thing we would be launching today was Srixon golf balls, not that I was disappointed, of course.

And to do this, we needn’t even swing a golf club. A specially designed robot visible through a glass panel, not unlike the famed Iron Byron, was rigged up to deliver the “perfect swing” onto a teed up ball so that we could view the result from the warm comforts of our control centre. (It was the tail end of winter in Japan, after all, and hitting balls while it was close to 0 degrees Celsius outside wasn't on my agenda, really.)

Few things could be derived from the flight of a golf ball that could not be done within the glassed walls of the DGSC. As ball after ball whizzed onto the highly manucured turf of the testing range (there were two employees standing on the range, yes ON the range, behind the protection of specially designed shields, watching the balls land and reporting their results to the control centre) readings are made through laser projecting devices and a photoelectric device measuring the speed of the club (which can be controlled), the initial velocity of the ball, and vertical and horizontal launch angles, through a variety of clubs.

At the same time, back spin, side spin and axial spin of the ball is also analyzed in real time through high speed imaging. The laser system is further able to measure the angle of the club face just before impact. And if this was not thorough enough, the 3D Wind Velocity Measuriing System analyzes, through supersonic waves, the strength and direction of the wind, and how it affects the performance of the balls. Just about anything you want to know about the ball could be found out
from the data that spewed from the gizmos in the control room.

The Dunlop Golf Science Centre also provides a testing area where Srixon’s top professionals can come to be custom fitted, or to test a new club or ball. Prior to my visit, I was told by one of the engineers that Vijay Singh (who recently switched to a Srixon ball) was there recently to test some new products. (Singh, as you may gather, plays Cleveland equipment, and Srixon purchased Cleveland a couple of year's back, hence the ball switch.) Indeed, a quick glance above the doorway to this test centre, I could see the autographs of many of the brand’s top professionals, which includes, aside from Singh, Jim Furyk, Karrie Webb and 2009 Players Championship winner Henrik Stenson.

As interesting as the DGSC was, it was only the appetizer section of my visit to the golf facility. Next stop was the actual ball factory. Finally, I could see in person the birthing process of a golfer’s ammunition. (We know the death process, of course, either in the pond, or in the trees where they often meet an unglamorous demise.)

Touring Srixon’s ball factory is an exercise shrouded in secrecy. I’m sure this is the case with any golf ball manufacturer. But the exactness of the Srixon manufacturing process is exemplary in the industry, even among its competitors.

As with all ball manufacturing complexes, it’s what inside that really counts. Ball structure has come a long way in the last decade, and Srixon is at the fore front of these new technologies.

The start of the ball process begins with the mixing of core material. Mostly made of rubber, proprietary materials are added in this stage, then producing a solid mixture that is cut into cylindrical shapes or plugs, as they are called (see picture left). This cylindrical rubber plug is then pressed into spheres that will become the core of the ball, before the cover material is applied through an injection molding process.

Srixon makes one-piece, two-piece and three-piece balls. The multi-layer balls go through several iterations of the injection molding process, each time applying a different layer of material to produce the desired affect from the resulting product.

Once the ball comes out of the final molding process, the seams are buffed, the logo is applied, and the balls are painted. Each ball is inspected by eye before they are packed and shipped to various parts of the world (picture below).

Not surprisingly, the tight productivity requirements and efficiency of the Ichijima factory earned Srixon ISO 14001 Certification in 1998, just three years after it opened. And three years later, it achieved a “zero emission” rating for its green awareness. Now who said golf was a detriment to the environment?

The most eye-opening aspect of my visit to Srixon’s Ichijima facility is probably how much work goes into the manufacturing of their golf ball. We seldom think twice about the amount of research, testing, and attention to detail involved to make a Srixon ball. Now that I’m a little wiser to this, I’ll certainly take more care the next time I tee one up.

- Ju K. Tan, Editor, Golf Digest Singapore (jktan@sph.com.sg)