An object of the present invention is to provide a golf ball having a great flight distance on driver shots. The present invention provides a golf ball having a spherical core and at least one cover layer covering the spherical core, wherein when JIS-C hardness, which is measured at nine points obtained by dividing a radius of the spherical core into equal parts having 12.5% intervals therebetween, is plotted against distance (%) from a core center, the spherical core is such that R2 of a linear approximation curve obtained from the least square method is 0.95 or higher, and a hardness difference between a core surface hardness and a core central hardness is 15 or higher in JIS-C hardness.