Rev. Robert Adams Paterson (c. 1829 – April 1904) was a Scottish-American clergyman who invented the inventor of the

gutta-percha Gutta-percha is a tree of the genus ''Palaquium'' in the family Sapotaceae. The name also refers to the rigid, naturally biologically inert, resilient, electrically nonconductive, thermoplastic latex derived from the tree, particularly from ...

golf ball A golf ball is a special ball designed to be used in the game of golf. Under the rules of golf, a golf ball has a mass no more than , has a diameter not less than , and performs within specified velocity, distance, and symmetry limits. Like g ...

— known as the

guttie A golf ball is a special ball designed to be used in the game of golf. Under the rules of golf, a golf ball has a mass no more than , has a diameter not less than , and performs within specified velocity, distance, and symmetry limits. Like g ...

— in 1848."Golf Ball Inventor Dead"
''The New York Times''. 26 April 1904.Flemma, Jay
"Old Tom: Still Watching Over the Old Course"
golfobserver.com. 16 July 2005. Retrieved 1 June 2012. Paterson was born in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, where he attended the

University of St Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

. Golf was popular at the university, but Paterson was very poor and could not afford to buy the expensive balls, which were made with pigskin and stuffed with feathers. He instead used gutta-percha, which had been wrapped around an idol from India as packaging. He died in

Bloomfield, New York Bloomfield is a village in Ontario County, New York, United States. The population was 1,361 at the 2010 census. The Village of Bloomfield is in the Town of East Bloomfield and is west of Canandaigua. History The village was part of the Ph ...

. He was a president of the New York State Ladies' College of

Binghamton Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflue ...

References

1820s births 1904 deaths 19th-century Scottish people Scottish emigrants to the United States {{Scotland-inventor-stub