How Many Golf Balls End Up in the Water?

[ASEAN NOW Golf]

Every time the Weber father and daughter duo went diving along Carmel Bay in California, they gathered between 500 and 5,000 golf balls.

 

 

Between May 2016 and June 2018, the Weber’s actually retrieved 50,000 golf balls in total, equaling around 2.5 tons of debris, roughly equivalent to the weight of a pickup truck.

 

It is unclear how many golf balls are lost globally every year, but one estimate suggests the annual figure could be as high as 300 million in the United States alone.

 

Thailand Lost Balls

 

Here in Thailand we are used to cursing at those smiling Thai swimmers, who spend their time under water retrieving our new Titleist Pro V1 golf ball, we just sliced into the lake.

 

 

Again, it is hard to be exact, but say pre Covid the 250 Thai courses each attracted an average of 250 golfers over a weekend. That is 62,500 rounds of golf just on Saturday’s and Sunday’s.

 

Assume that 35% or 21,875 of these players loose at least one ball in the water every weekend, then over a year that rises to a staggering 1,137,500 lost golf balls. And that does not take into consideration weekdays!

 

 

It is bad enough to lose a new ball, but many will end up back in our bags, when we go to buy some secondhand golf balls along the street.

 

Of course, these swimmers are most likely laughing all the way to the bank, but at least they are keeping the golf course lakes free from pollution, which is a good thing.

 

I wonder how many mobile phones get picked up too, even by wild animals!

 

 

But with so many golf courses across the world with holes running along side the sea, from Pebble Beach to Hoanna Shores in Vietnam or Torrie Pines to Sea Pines in Hua Hin, it is mind boggling how many golf balls are polluting the oceans.

 

How many golf balls do you lose a year?

 

Even so, golf balls are a tiny percentage of the eight million tons of plastic humans dump into the oceans every year. Some predictions suggest that there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050.

 

 

[JAS21]

Couldn’t actually give you a figure … but usually stop off at the 2nd hand ball shop on the way home…

[chickenslegs]

Lose!

[remobb]

Just about every ball I buy. I think they have water magnets in them.

[berrec]

Well my contribution is about 5 to 6 balls a week 

[Lacessit]

Water divining devices......

[TigerandDog]

Only playing once a month these days, but over the course of the year I'd average about 5 per round in the drink. About 4 years ago had a round at Legacy in CM and one of the guys in our group, a beginner at the time, lost 35 balls that day. The most I've lost in a single round is 9.

Edited June 22, 2021 by TigerandDog