Finding balls when you play.

I dont or if I stumble across one, I give it to someone else in the group.
I never struggle with some that do it, unless they are not playing ready golf and are looking when it is their turn to hit. Which happens all too often sadly.

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I don't go out of my way to do it and only do it when waiting or walking up to my ball. The found balls generally get donated to the local first tee that I volunteer.
 
I find a decent amount but I don't play Pro V1s so I just give them away.
If I can't find my ball or retrieve it without a special club I will just drop another.

It drives me nuts when someone wants to fish for balls for 5 minutes when the green is open in front of us.
 
I don’t because I did once, and then the guy drove up looking for his ball which he had mishit from a different hole. I gave it back to him and apologized and now don’t pick up any I find while playing

However I do walk my pups every morning at 5am and we usually walk thru 2-3 holes on the golf course next door to me. All the groundskeepers know us and love my pups. I’ll pickup any balls I find then, as it’s obviously not a ball that someone may be actively looking for
 
I found a lot more when I was starting out, but I spend less time near penalty areas now so I don't find as many. If I do end up in the position to find some I'll keep premium balls for practice and give everything else away or leave them in the basket in the cart for the next guy or teenagers that service the carts.
 
Since I'm on the golf course 7 days a week performing various tasks and playing I find quite a few and usually leave them in my cart for the other employees to pick through.
 
ps: I have given a lot more away to first tee like programs, friends, but no enemies. :)
Good idea. We have a First Tee that we play at sometimes, seems like a great place to give some balls to.
 
I may stumble upon a couple and put them in the cart ball storage for the group to use, but I rarely spend time walking along searching or retrieving.
 
When it is cart path only I will find a ton of balls. Especially when they are far from the cart path. I typically keep them for my shag bag


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I haven't really ball mined since I worked at a golf course. I used to work at a high end private course and I found an obscene amount of high quality balls. We used to argue over who was going to go out for line trim duty. There were areas on the course where you would find over 100 Pro V1s in a 300 sq. ft. area while line trimming. After about a year, there wasn't a time that I didn't have at least 5 5gallon buckets full of high end balls (I threw any others away). I was a high handicap ball snob. :LOL:

Since then, I'll pick balls up if I find them when looking for my ball. I'll only play them if it's in perfect shape (not uncommon) and the rest I throw in the cart and take them to the driving range when I'm done with my round. Our range uses a mix of balls along with sh!tty range balls. If I had a particularly bad round, I'll hit them out there and try to work out a particular miss. Otherwise I just leave them on the range tee.
 
I collect them all the time as long as the course is empty. Of the 9 holes on my home course, 6 require carrying ravines or marshy areas. There are also thick woods that line the fairways. Most people don’t like walking through that stuff so there’s an abundance of balls.
 
I always keep an eye out and keep whatever I find, even if it's beat up past the point of being playable. My old man lives on 15 acres, so whenever I go visit him with my wife and son, I always take my stock of golf balls (aka whatever I've found between visits) and hit around on his land.
 
I'm not sure how many I've found, but I ALWAYS leave the course with more balls than I came with. A buddy in our foursome has a ball retriever that can trap 4-5 balls at once. He routinely retrieves 25-30 balls per round from the 2 water holes on our course. I'd say about half are in good playable shape, the rest we hit back into the water.
 
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