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NORTH CAROLINA. — Tiger Woods ruled golf in 2000 in a manner that may never be matched, but one of his peers may have an insight into one of the reasons for that dominance. Frank Nobilo, who won 15 times globally, including once on the PGA Tour, says Woods reaped the benefits of being one of the first players to switch to a solid ball from a wound ball.

“A lot of people look at 2000 as Tiger at his best but it was probably the first and only time in Tiger’s career that you could argue that maybe he had better equipment than the rest,” Nobilo, now a commentator for Golf Channel, said.

“Only a handful of guys had gone to the solid ball.

The rest of us all thought a wound ball was better.”

Wound balls had a rubber thread wound around either a liquid centre or a synthetic rubber core. These days, all players use solid, multi-layer, urethane-covered balls.

New Zealander Nobilo is not suggesting Woods would not have dominated had he used wounds balls, just that he thinks it might not have been by quite as much. — Reuters.