Keith Blakely has high hopes for his latest creation – the world's first hollow-metal core golf ball, writes FRANK DILLON

THERE’S AN OLD adage that says if you build a better mousetrap customers will beat a path to your door. Coming up with an innovative product, however, is often the easy part. Bringing it to market successfully is another challenge altogether.

Keith Blakely is someone who knows a lot about that. Blakely is a Buffalo, New York-based serial entrepreneur who has spent three decades working in energy, environmental and infrastructure technologies, having started his first company at the age of 24.

Blakely is a former CEO* of NanoMech, a technology commercialisation company focused on developing and manufacturing patented applications for nanomaterials and nano-enabled products.

His latest venture is an ambitious plan to develop the world’s first hollow-metal core golf ball. The inventor of the ball is a long-time associate and friend, Doug DuFaux. DuFaux had first mentioned his invention in a “water cooler” conversation with Blakely when they were working together on a project in 2005. The ball was initially developed by a company NanoDynamics as the NDMX ball.

It won conforming approval from the USGA, American golf’s governing body and proved a hit with golfers who used it. But, despite early promise, it failed to reach its potential as the company was focused on other activities.

“The initial reaction to the first ball was very enthusiastic but there were price and performance issues that needed to be addressed. The ball felt heavy and was expensive to manufacture, necessitating a price tag of $60 a dozen,” Blakely explains.

When NanoDynamics closed in 2009, DuFaux continued to work on the technology and teamed up with Blakely, who brought his skills in commercialisation to the project.

How a golf ball performs is affected by a number of factors including dimple pattern, moment of inertia, weight distribution, compression and club head speed amongst others.

OnCore’s ball incorporates proprietary metal alloys with ultra-high performance polymer blends that shift the weight of the ball towards the perimeter, increasing the moment of inertia and reducing the amount of side spin. This reduction in side spin leads to straighter shots and lower scores.

To understand how this works, a good analogy is to think of a figure skater going into a spin. As the weight of the skater shifts inwards, the spin rate increases and as the skater’s arms are extended and as the weight shifts outwards, the spin rate decreases.

“The unique feature of the ball is the hollow metal core. We also wanted to play on the word encore as this is the second act for the ball,” Blakely explains.

The ball, which is being marketed under the brand Omen, has been improved from its original specifications and has been submitted to the USGA for testing. The ball is available for purchase through the company’s website but for now Blakely and his small team are concentrating on developing a Tour ball version and engaging fundraising and developing manufacturing and distribution arrangements. They have set their sights on launching the Tour Ball with a big splash at the PGA Show next Spring.

The aim is for the Omen to garner a 3-5 per cent market share of the US golf ball market within three years, making OnCore a $30-40 million turnover company. The golf ball market is dominated by brands such as Titleist, Callaway and Nike, formidable competitors with deep pockets. It won’t be an easy task for a small up-start to establish a toe-hold in this market but Blakely believes it can be done.

The company’s website, social media as well as traditional outlets such as Pro-Golf shops will be key to marketing the product. “Word of mouth and recommendations will be very important so social media will play a big part in this in a way that wasn’t possible previously,” Blakely notes.

Having secured patents on the design, OnCore believes it can compete as David to the market Goliaths. “Three million golfers leave the game every year. There’s a lot of frustration in golf and we believe we’ve come up with something that will make the game easier to play. If we achieve traction we believe one of the major players in the market is going to pucker up to us.”

OnCore has established a manufacturing partner with the capability of producing 300,000 dozen golf balls a year and Blakely, who describes himself as OnCore’s chairman and banker, is currently spearheading a fund-raising initiative. The company has been sponsoring charity tournaments such as the recent BMW Pro-Am Tournament in South Carolina to raise its profile, with an eye on attracting investors.

“It’s not an ideal time to be fund-raising as large parts of the market are frozen but I’ve done this a few times before so I believe it can be done. It’s a question of kissing a lot of frogs at the moment but well get there.”

*This article was amended on June 11th, 2012, to correct a factual error