A cheapskate lurks inside all of us. I’m a penny miser in many ways, but one that stands out is choosing to hit beat-up golf balls over and over.
This started last year. There were so many balls left in my bag that it seemed like I lifted an extra ten pounds in the short walk from the car trunk to the golf cart. Picking up my playing partners’ golf bags made me wonder why mine was so heavy. We all have similar numbers of clubs. My bag, though slightly bigger than some, wasn’t hefty enough to make a colossal difference weight-wise.
Analyzing this complicated data, it seemed clear that the bag was overloaded with golf balls. It became time to use them, lose them, or beat them to pieces.
This was a conscious and strategic decision, one that golf pros never make. Pros hit perfect balls, literally and figuratively. I’m pretty sure they bring a crisp, fresh one out of the package every three holes or so. That’s for show. Maybe they feel they’ve beat up the ball enough after 12 shots and it’s time for a change. Who knows? Regardless, they keep the golf ball manufacturers working.
The guys I play with shoot for 18 holes at least before they get rid of a ball, though we usually knock one out-of-bounds, into a pond, or across a highway within the first three holes, so we must pull a new one out. I remember playing with a guy 10 years ago in a scramble and he brought out a package of 12, and another 6 for good measure. I asked why he brought 18 new balls. “One to lose on every hole,” he laughed. And danged if he didn’t just about lose all 18 in the course of the afternoon.
Beyond wanting to empty the bag, one of my goals in getting rid of all the golf balls was to see how long it took to lose or demolish them so thoroughly that even I wouldn’t hit them. Honestly, for those of us who hack around courses, does it really matter if your ball is kind of scuffed up? Probably not.
Another goal was the challenge of seeing how long a ball would last. Once it was designated as the “one,” how long before it got lost? Would it launch into the knee high prairie grass where a dog couldn’t sniff it out? Would it ricochet off three trees after you shanked it right into the next fairway, with no idea where it bounced?
The interesting answer to these questions was that once you decide you’re not going to use a new ball, the old one seems to stay around forever. You hit it straight. It lands in your fairway, not somebody else’s.
This is in direct contradiction to what happens when you pull a brand new ball out, as I demonstrated last week when I finally broke down and purchased a box of a dozen because my supply had dwindled so low. On the first hole of the day, I cracked open the package, let the shiny sphere roll around in my palm, as I thought, “Better not pull it into those trees on the left, or I’ll lose it on the very first hole.”
You, of course, know the rest. I yanked it left, some guy in front of us said he saw it bounce off the cart path and into the fairway, but we never found it. Lost it on the first shot with the new ball. That’s why bad golfers should keep hitting the old ones.
This started last year. There were so many balls left in my bag that it seemed like I lifted an extra ten pounds in the short walk from the car trunk to the golf cart. Picking up my playing partners’ golf bags made me wonder why mine was so heavy. We all have similar numbers of clubs. My bag, though slightly bigger than some, wasn’t hefty enough to make a colossal difference weight-wise.
Analyzing this complicated data, it seemed clear that the bag was overloaded with golf balls. It became time to use them, lose them, or beat them to pieces.
This was a conscious and strategic decision, one that golf pros never make. Pros hit perfect balls, literally and figuratively. I’m pretty sure they bring a crisp, fresh one out of the package every three holes or so. That’s for show. Maybe they feel they’ve beat up the ball enough after 12 shots and it’s time for a change. Who knows? Regardless, they keep the golf ball manufacturers working.
The guys I play with shoot for 18 holes at least before they get rid of a ball, though we usually knock one out-of-bounds, into a pond, or across a highway within the first three holes, so we must pull a new one out. I remember playing with a guy 10 years ago in a scramble and he brought out a package of 12, and another 6 for good measure. I asked why he brought 18 new balls. “One to lose on every hole,” he laughed. And danged if he didn’t just about lose all 18 in the course of the afternoon.
Beyond wanting to empty the bag, one of my goals in getting rid of all the golf balls was to see how long it took to lose or demolish them so thoroughly that even I wouldn’t hit them. Honestly, for those of us who hack around courses, does it really matter if your ball is kind of scuffed up? Probably not.
Another goal was the challenge of seeing how long a ball would last. Once it was designated as the “one,” how long before it got lost? Would it launch into the knee high prairie grass where a dog couldn’t sniff it out? Would it ricochet off three trees after you shanked it right into the next fairway, with no idea where it bounced?
The interesting answer to these questions was that once you decide you’re not going to use a new ball, the old one seems to stay around forever. You hit it straight. It lands in your fairway, not somebody else’s.
This is in direct contradiction to what happens when you pull a brand new ball out, as I demonstrated last week when I finally broke down and purchased a box of a dozen because my supply had dwindled so low. On the first hole of the day, I cracked open the package, let the shiny sphere roll around in my palm, as I thought, “Better not pull it into those trees on the left, or I’ll lose it on the very first hole.”
You, of course, know the rest. I yanked it left, some guy in front of us said he saw it bounce off the cart path and into the fairway, but we never found it. Lost it on the first shot with the new ball. That’s why bad golfers should keep hitting the old ones.