The golf ball is the only projectile in sport with no permitted range

Read enough equipment rules and they start to look alike. A ball is specified by a band: this heavy to that heavy, this big to that big. The Laws of the Game give a football 410 to 450 grams. The ITF gives a tennis ball 56.0 to 59.4. FIVB gives a volleyball 260 to 280.

The Equipment Rules give a golf ball this:

The weight of the ball must not be greater than 1.620 ounces avoirdupois — 45.93 g. The diameter of the ball must not be less than 1.680 inches, or 42.67 mm.

Reference The maximum weight of 45.93 g and the minimum diameter of 42.67 mm, from the Equipment Rules Part 4, sections 4.2 and 4.3.

One maximum. One minimum. There is no minimum weight and no maximum diameter.

Why those two directions

The pairing is not arbitrary; it is the two halves of one physical argument.

A ball flies further when it carries more momentum into the air and loses less of it on the way. More mass means more momentum for the same launch speed — and, since drag depends on frontal area rather than mass, a heavier ball decelerates less for the same size. So the rule caps mass.

A smaller ball presents less frontal area and therefore meets less drag at any speed. So the rule floors diameter.

Both bounds point the same way: against distance. The rule is not describing a golf ball. It is describing the boundary of a region, and everything outside the boundary is further than the sport wants the ball to go.

The unbounded directions are the ones nobody would choose. A lighter ball or a larger one flies shorter, and a manufacturer is welcome to make either. There is no arms race towards a worse ball, so there is no need for a limit.

The numbers behind this chart

Row	Permitted variation in mass, as a percentage of the smallest legal value	Detail
Badminton shuttle	16	4.74–5.50 g
Football	10	410–450 g
Volleyball	8	260–280 g
Tennis ball	6	56.0–59.4 g
Golf ball	0	maximum 45.93 g, no minimum stated

Source R&A Equipment Rules Part 4; BWF Laws of Badminton Law 2.2; IFAB Laws of the Game Law 2.1; FIVB Official Volleyball Rules Rule 3.1; ITF Rules of Tennis Appendix I.
Method Each figure is (maximum − minimum) ÷ minimum for mass, as a percentage. Golf is plotted at zero because its rule states no minimum mass; the bar records the absence of a range, not a range of zero width.

The clause that anticipates cleverness

Two bounds on their own would be easy to work around. A ball could satisfy both while behaving very differently depending on which way up it was struck — weighted on one side, or with its dimples arranged to favour one axis. The third section closes that.

The ball must not be designed, manufactured or intentionally modified to have properties which differ from those of a spherically symmetrical ball.

Reference The spherical-symmetry requirement — that a ball must not be designed, manufactured or intentionally modified to have properties differing from those of a spherically symmetrical ball, from section 4.4.

Note what is prohibited: properties which differ, not shapes which differ. A ball may look asymmetrical, provided it does not behave asymmetrically. And the three verbs — designed, manufactured, intentionally modified — cover the three points at which asymmetry could be introduced, including by a player after purchase.

This is an effect rule sitting on top of two dimension rules, and it is there because the dimension rules alone leave a door open.

The two limits the rules point at but do not state

Part 4 does not stop at three sections. It also states that the initial velocity of the ball must not exceed the limit specified, and that the ball’s overall distance must not exceed the distance specified — while referring the reader to the R&A’s or USGA’s website for the full details of each test.

Reference That the initial velocity of the ball must not exceed the limit specified and the overall distance must not exceed the distance specified, with full details of the tests referred to the R&A’s or USGA’s website, from sections 4.5 and 4.6.

This article does not quote figures for either, because the page that states them was not retrievable during reporting and the numbers circulate widely in secondary write-ups that this publication does not treat as evidence. What matters structurally is the shape of the delegation, and that is visible in the rule itself: the existence of the limits is in the Rules of Equipment, and the values live in a testing regime maintained beside them.

That is the same division football makes. Law 2 gives a circumference, a mass and a pressure, then requires balls in official competition to bear a mark of the FIFA Quality Programme, whose requirements are explicitly additional to the minimum specifications in the Law.

Reference That balls in FIFA and confederation competitions must bear a mark of the FIFA Quality Programme, whose technical requirements are additional to the minimum specifications stipulated in Law 2, from Law 2.1.

In both sports, the rulebook sets a floor a referee can check and hands the performance envelope to a laboratory.

What a one-sided specification says about a sport

Compare the shape of the golf rule with the tennis one and the difference in intent is stark.

The ITF approves four adult ball types with different mass, size, rebound and deformation windows, and matches each to a category of court surface — a fast ball for a slow court, a slow ball for a fast one.

Reference That the ITF specifies several approved ball types with differing size, rebound and deformation ranges, intended for different court pace categories, from Appendix I and the accompanying guidance.

Tennis uses the ball as a tuning parameter, adjusting it to compensate for the surface. Golf uses it as a ceiling, and adjusts nothing — because golf has no standard surface to compensate for, and no dimensions in its field of play to protect.

The two rules are consistent with the sports they belong to. A game played on measured courts can afford to vary its ball. A game played on whatever ground is available has only the ball to regulate, and regulates it in the single direction that matters.