Badminton uses a shuttlecock rather than a ball, which slows it down sharply in flight.

The longer version

A shuttlecock is a cork nose with a skirt of feathers or synthetic material, so its mass sits at the front and its drag at the back. That combination makes it self-stabilising: it turns to fly nose first and then decelerates hard, because the skirt produces far more drag than a sphere of the same weight.

The result is a trajectory unlike any ball, steep on the way out and almost vertical at the end, so court depth rather than height limits play. Players can strike it far harder than a ball because drag removes the speed before it reaches the back line. Humidity and air density change flight measurably, which is why shuttles are graded and sometimes conditioned before use.

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