How is a golf ball like a root canal?

I had a root canal this morning. Not the most exciting or most enjoyable experience, but it had to be done. I had never had a root canal, so when I got to the dentist's office, I asked Anita, the dental assistant, exactly what was going to happen to me and my tooth.

 
She carefully explained the process. My dentist, Dr. Miller, would drill a hole through the crown of my tooth, clean out the icky dead roots and then fill the empty root canals with gutta-percha. Hold on! Gutta-percha? I couldn't believe my ears. Anita started to tell me what gutta-percha is. I said, "Golf balls used to be made with gutta-percha." Then it was her turn to be amazed.

"Gutta-percha" comes from two Malay words: getah, which means tree sap or latex, and perca, which means rag or strip of cloth. (Gutta-percha was originally sold in strips.) According to Webster's New World College Dictionary, gutta-percha is "a rubber-like gum produced from the latex of various Southeast Asian trees (esp. genera Palaquium and Payena) of the sapodilla family and used in electric insulation, dentistry, golf balls, etc."

You have to admire people who write dictionaries: "electric insulation, dentistry and golf balls, etc." What would the "etc." be in a list like this? What would leap to mind? It turns out that gutta-percha has also been used to coat a hangman's noose so the noose wouldn't stick to the skin of the person being hanged. In Scotland, it was used for the soles of athletic shoes, commonly called "gutties." The first transatlantic cable was insulated with gutta-percha, a biologically inert material that would not be harmed by marine plants. And, as many of us know, gutta-percha was used to give golf balls their bounce.

Rev. Dr. Robert Adams invented the gutta-percha ball around 1848 (an article by John English in the June 1954 issue of USGA Journal and Turf Management gives the date of invention as 1845 and the date of introduction as 1848). The invention was important to the game of golf because the ball in use at that time, the handmade "feathery," was extremely expensive, making golf available only to the wealthy. Gutta-percha balls could be mass produced and were sturdier. Ultimately gutta-percha balls were responsible for a huge increase in the number of golfers and therefore helped to make the golf industry what it is today.

So how is a golf ball like a root canal? Well, old golf balls and old root canals can be full of gutta-percha. You learn something new every day.