Raymond Baldorossi Sr., A design engineer at Martin Marietta (Lockheed Martin), observes his son, Ray Jr., hitting a 4” souvenir basketball with a golf club at their home in Orlando Florida. After hitting the ball well, Ray Jr. exclaims, “Dad that would be cool... golf with a big ball!”. Senior starts designing clubs and balls the next day.
After a year of experimenting with different types of balls, Ray Sr. settles on a lightweight closed-cell foam with an outer vinyl skin to bring the weight upon the ball. The 4 3/8” diameter ball has no dimples and travels about 50 yards on a good hit. Simultaneously he has developed 5 large-faced clubs (different angles).
Ray Jr. finds a new type of foam. He and his father are able to make three lumpy prototypes from the sample he acquired. After a lot of testing the new ball proves to be highly durable but it cannot be mass-produced and it’s challenging to make a decent-looking professional Softgolf ball from it. The prototype type is still holding up well after 22 years.
2005...
2007...
2008...
2009...
2011...
2011- 2014...
2018...
2021...
Blanche Baldorossi is currently 93 years old and still enjoys playing Softgolf. Ray Jr. has named the World Championship trophies in honor of his parents. The male winners receive the Raymond Baldorossi Sr. trophy and female champions receive the Blanche Baldorossi trophy. All of the trophies are presented by Blanche.
"1974, Orlando, Fl.: I was playing golf with a wiffle ball struggling to hit the tiny orb, when my ball went off course and landed next to a 4” diameter souvenir basketball. I couldn’t resist the urge to take a practice swing at the larger ball. I still remember how well that bigger ball flew off my 7 iron. My dad was standing close by working in the backyard. Looking for his approval, I asked, “Hey dad, did you see that?” He took a break from his work and said, “Yeah, that was a great hit… hit it again!” My second shot soared even straighter and farther than the first one. “Dad, wouldn’t that be cool, golf with a bigger ball?” You could almost see the wheels turning in our brains as we simultaneously started processing the concept."
"My dad was an aeronautical design engineer with clearance on top secret government projects. A man who built his own basement and an inground pool creating his own filtration system and pool equipment. Within 18 months dad and I had tested several types of spherical foams and inflatable balls. We ended up building a machine together made from repurposed 1960's washing machine parts, my brother’s skateboard wheels, scrap metal and junkyard treasures. The “ball making machine” was used to transform a long cylinder of foam into several 4 ⅜” diameter perfect spheres. But the density of the foam was too light (it only flew about 10 yards) and it needed dimples. The next step was to hand drill 80 symmetrical ½” dimples in the balls with a homemade template.
To bring the weight of the ball up we added several layers of vinyl coating. The total process took about an hour per ball. The finished ball flew about 65 yards, however, it only lasted for approximately 3 months. My father also crafted ten wooden (and clay) clubs (5 left and right-handed). He used those model clubs to make molds. He took the molds to a foundry, and they produced about 800 club faces. Each club face had to have a hole bored in it for the club shaft and each shaft needed grips. Some of the shafts had to be shortened to produce children’s clubs and various adult sizes. The process to produce each club took over an hour but early on in the club production process, dad decided to stop making 2 of the middle loft clubs and go with just a driver, wedge and putter. We also produced 150 various sized carrying cases from PVC pipes that took 45 minutes each. The technology available in the mid 1970’s did not present any other financially logical way to mass produce all of the equipment. (Injection molding closed cell foams was not introduced until 2008 and it has some limitations).
We set up production in our hand dug basement. By 1976 dad and I had accumulated around 1,000 man hours to produce 150 sets of clubs and balls. But we needed patents before we could open a course. Necessity is the mother of invention, and it was necessary for my mom, Blanche, to jump in and utilize her technical writing skills. My parents worked diligently day and night for many months. They applied for 5 different patents. The 5 patents were all denied each time on 3 separate submissions. In the fourth round of submissions, they were finally granted 4 patents in 1978 and 1979. A fifth patent was granted in 1981. Five years after the dream was conceived, Softgolf came to fruition. Raymond Sr. and Blanche Baldorossi, opened the first Softgolf course in Delran, NJ. in June of 1979. That course was popular and successful.
However, Softgolf closed in 1988 after a summer of sold-out nights and record-setting sales. The landlord refused to extend the lease of the property. We had several customers interested in buying Softgolf franchises but spending an hour hand making a ball that wasn’t durable didn’t provide a scalable business model. It may have been a huge mistake to not take advantage of the traction that Softgolf had gained and continue to operate at a new location, but we knew we needed to find a way to mass produce an exceptionally durable ball for our business to expand so we opted to put all of our energy into the quest of the elusive ball. During the next 16 years, dad and I acquired several samples of foams. Many possessed the qualities we were looking for, but they couldn’t be injection molded and many were only available in ½” thickness or less. We experimented with several imaginative techniques. (Re-using an outer shell on diverse types of foams… we also tried using a heavier rubber inner core)
In 2004 we received a sample of a brand-new type of foam. It was available in 1 ½” thickness. We glued three layers together to get a thickness of 4 ½” and managed to cut three somewhat lumpy 4” spheres. They were rough but good enough for test flights. The much higher density balls did not require any coatings to bring the weight up which was a big-time saver. At 80 plus yards, they flew farther than our original and seemed to be virtually indestructible.The higher density and elasticity made it challenging to create a smooth perfect sphere using our machine but the potential for a durable ball was there. Around the same time, dad’s health began to deteriorate. Dad passed away on December 30, 2007. Before his passing, I promised him I would get Softgolf operating again and find a way to mass produce an exceptionally durable and perfectly round ball. To honor my parent’s contributions and legacy, I named the trophies for our World Softgolf Championship in their names. All of the men’s (age groups) champions are awarded the Raymond F Baldorossi Sr. Trophy and the female champions are awarded the Blanche Baldorossi Trophy."