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Biodegradeable Golf Balls

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Matt J

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With all the fuss about the ball being too long it seems a mandate that manufacturers make balls that degrade would be an easy solution.

I'm on my mobile or I would post a few links to the current selection that include a lobster shell ball as well as a couple made of corn starch.

Seems an easy opportunity to clean up our image and lessen our impact. Why isn't this on the table? Too green for golfers?

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How did these balls spin and hold the green? Durable? Cost? Lobster is around $10/lb. I also don't really consider golf a green sport, between the fertilizers used and the loss of habitat that the construction of courses consume, I can't consider it green. Courses do preserve open space but that is as green as it gets.
 
A mandate to the manufacturers? You can't be serious, there are so many other industries that affect things much more than golf balls. However, there is at least one company that I know of that makes an eco friendly golf ball though. They had a table at an outing I was at on a par 3 where you could hit there ball. I hit their ball and a real ball on that hole and the difference was VERY noticeable.
 
Good luck making one that wouldn't degrade before the end of a PGA tour round.
 
I have actually seen them. Played in a tournament once and one of the hole in one sponsors was a company that does biodegradeable balls. Believe the name was Nixon or Dixon, something like that. Now that mandate part, that's just silly.
 
ddec said:
I have actually seen them. Played in a tournament once and one of the hole in one sponsors was a company that does biodegradeable balls. Believe the name was Nixon or Dixon, something like that. Now that mandate part, that's just silly.
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Dixon. The last couple outings I have been in they gave you one ball and if you landed on the green they would give you a sleeve. I think it cost like $5 to enter their "contest". I think I have a sleeve of their golf balls that was given to me by one of my playing partners. I think my ball ended up in the lake on another hole. :D
 
bogeyme said:
Dixon. The last couple outings I have been in they gave you one ball and if you landed on the green they would give you a sleeve. I think it cost like $5 to enter their "contest". I think I have a sleeve of their golf balls that was given to me by one of my playing partners. I think my ball ended up in the lake on another hole. :D
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Yeah that's the one! I think i tested mine out pretty quickly too haha
 
bogeyme said:
Dixon. The last couple outings I have been in they gave you one ball and if you landed on the green they would give you a sleeve. I think it cost like $5 to enter their "contest". I think I have a sleeve of their golf balls that was given to me by one of my playing partners. I think my ball ended up in the lake on another hole. :D
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Yep I had the same experience at a charity outing. I paid the $5, hit their ball and promptly gave the sleeve to my dad.
 
Maybe this is what Jack meant by rolling back the ball..... Lobster roll(ing) it back??
if only the water hazards were changed to clarified butter... this game could really become delicious..
 
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I thought Dixons were just made of recycled material? Maybe they have more than one model.
 
I am all for sustainability but this proposal seems cosmetic at best. A course would be better served to decrease their carbon footprint by adding trees and utilizing the natural landscape of the area.
 
jdtox said:
Yep I had the same experience at a charity outing. I paid the $5, hit their ball and promptly gave the sleeve to my dad.
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I'm with you on these.
990d09579a34513a6db281ec0a5c341c.gif


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A mandate is a poor solution to this problem, if it is in fact a problem. With apologies to JB, I see another photo caption contest here:

egolfballs_1b.jpg

"You IDIOTS!!!. Larry said he wanted to become a golfer in retirement!!! GOLF-ER!!!"
 
It makes my blood boil to see garbage hanging in trees and spewed along the road; when a coworker complained to me about getting a ticket for throwing a cigarette butt out his car window I cheered. It does bother me to lose golf balls. I don’t know what the solution is, accept decreased performance to have a biodegradable ball? Keep improving and lose fewer balls?
 
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Didn't Cosmo Kramer kill a whale with a Titleist once? Seriously though I think lost golf balls are one of smallest of golf's eco impacts.
 
Naturally a gluten free variation of the biodegradable ball would also be required just in case you get a little peckish on the back nine...
 
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subscribed, this seems like a very interesting thread
 
Daddio said:
Didn't Cosmo Kramer kill a whale with a Titleist once? Seriously though I think lost golf balls are one of smallest of golf's eco impacts.
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a marine biologist saved it
 
Biodegradeable Golf Balls

fupresti said:
I am all for sustainability but this proposal seems cosmetic at best. A course would be better served to decrease their carbon footprint by adding trees and utilizing the natural landscape of the area.
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Certainly off topic, but I just read a potentially controversial article that argued trees adjacent to maintained playing areas are detrimental to the environment because of the additional water they consume. (It did simultaneously suggest the planting of new growth trees away from the playing areas to make up for all the ones they told you to cut down from the rough areas)

Back to the golf ball.

Have you seen retired golf balls used in other areas for completely different purposes? For instance, they get used a lot in our area in chicken houses. Supposedly they can help train chickens to use nesting boxes, and will help deter snakes from stealing eggs.


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But now you are potentially constipating snakes...oh the horror.

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Golf balls are already biodegradable, it just takes a really, really, long time.
 
Matt J said:
With all the fuss about the ball being too long it seems a mandate that manufacturers make balls that degrade would be an easy solution.

I'm on my mobile or I would post a few links to the current selection that include a lobster shell ball as well as a couple made of corn starch.

Seems an easy opportunity to clean up our image and lessen our impact. Why isn't this on the table? Too green for golfers?

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using Tapatalk
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I'm confused a bit. You seem to be proposing a solution to two questionable "issues". The "ball being too long" is hardly even a serious debate. Also, where is your evidence for negative environmental impact and a tarnished image for non-biodegradable golf balls? I have never heard of such a thing ever. What an interesting post.
 
drinkinbeery said:
I'm confused a bit. You seem to be proposing a solution to two questionable "issues". The "ball being too long" is hardly even a serious debate. Also, where is your evidence for negative environmental impact and a tarnished image for non-biodegradable golf balls? I have never heard of such a thing ever. What an interesting post.
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The ball being "too long" is most certainly a serious debate. I don't think I need to defend that statement. When you have Nicklaus, Miller, and Woods saying the ball's too long, I think you have to honor that it's debatable at least.

As far as the image of golf and the biodegradable ball...

What is the environmental impact of the golf ball? I'm not sure I haven't invested a lot of energy into calculating it (yet maybe?) I do think it hurts our image that we use synthetic golf balls and scatter them everywhere. The Pebble Beach Company got into a big stink in Monterrey for the number of balls found in Stillwater Cove.

https://www.ksbw.com/article/thousands-of-golf-balls-found-on-ocean-floor-off-pebble-beach/7666159

The responses in this thread are generally not in-line with the "respect" this community hails itself as having for all ideas and posts. Several answers are obviously mocking and a simple google search would have rendered enough information to at least drive away a little of the ignorance.

Lobster shell golf ball article:

https://newatlas.com/biodegradable-golf-balls-made-from-lobster-shells/18480/

I think that these are the types of issues that our aging and entitled participants ignore, but that so-called "snowflakes" do not.

I must admit I'm disappointed in the responses. If this community serves as a sample size of golf, then I guess I have my answer.

Dixon golf ball link:

https://www.dixongolf.com/home.php?tracking=

Pretty decent article about impact of synthetic golf balls (if you think CNN is "fake news" don't click)

https://www.cnn.com/2009/SPORT/11/04/littering.golf.balls/
 
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Matt J said:
The ball being "too long" is most certainly a serious debate. I don't think I need to defend that statement. When you have Nicklaus, Miller, and Woods saying the ball's too long, I think you have to honor that it's debatable at least.

As far as the image of golf and the biodegradable ball...

What is the environmental impact of the golf ball? I'm not sure I haven't invested a lot of energy into calculating it (yet maybe?) I do think it hurts our image that we use synthetic golf balls and scatter them everywhere. The Pebble Beach Company got into a big stink in Monterrey for the number of balls found in Stillwater Cove.

https://www.ksbw.com/article/thousands-of-golf-balls-found-on-ocean-floor-off-pebble-beach/7666159

The responses in this thread are generally not in-line with the "respect" this community hails itself as having for all ideas and posts. Several answers are obviously mocking and a simple google search would have rendered enough information to at least drive away a little of the ignorance.

Lobster shell golf ball article:

https://newatlas.com/biodegradable-golf-balls-made-from-lobster-shells/18480/

I think that these are the types of issues that our aging and entitled participants ignore, but that so-called "snowflakes" do not.

I must admit I'm disappointed in the responses. If this community serves as a sample size of golf, then I guess I have my answer.

Dixon golf ball link:

https://www.dixongolf.com/home.php?tracking=

Pretty decent article about impact of synthetic golf balls (if you think CNN is "fake news" don't click)

https://www.cnn.com/2009/SPORT/11/04/littering.golf.balls/
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A couple of points:
While the golf ball length debate is certainly being taken up by some well known names, the debate seems mostly to be driven by former competitors that can’t seem to keep up with the young guys on tour, and some of them have been ranting about it for a long time for no good reason. That however is a topic for another thread and there is one.

I read back through the whole thread and I didn’t see any posts mocking the idea, I saw a couple of one off jokes, hardly anything that seemed to me to be mean spirited. I saw several people saying they had tested the products provided by at least one of companies you listed, and giving an honest opinion of the product quality.

To your point about the environmental impact, yes there certainly is some. However, I don't think mandating a biodegradable ball is the way to go. Lots of courses already have divers come clean up ponds and remove balls hit in the water. I think the onus is on the courses themselves to keep their facilities clean, and there should be a focus on that. Old balls can be used in many different ways, and that is something that should be expanded on, and just as soon as I have a good use for old golf balls I'll get a patent.

There are a lot of other areas that courses can focus on to reduce their impact, fertilizers, watering regimens, and other basic course maintenance can all be modified to use more eco-friendly methods, and again that's something that should be done I think, but the onus resides on local governments or the courses themselves. It's not something the USGA/R&A can come in and demand in any great fashion, not beyond encouraging courses to follow green methods by awarding tournaments to courses that are eco-friendly.

TL;DR (too long; didn't read) : There are better ways to reduce environmental impact than biodegradable golf balls.
 
fupresti said:
I am all for sustainability but this proposal seems cosmetic at best. A course would be better served to decrease their carbon footprint by adding trees and utilizing the natural landscape of the area.
Click to expand...

This. I feel like there are bigger issues in golf as far as environmental improvements


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