In Search of the Perfect Ball

So here I sit washing my balls and wondering what it takes to get them clean. The wire brush works, but I hate to think of the damage it might be doing. So now I am trying a solution of hot water and bleach and just letting them soak for an hour.

A number of years ago my wife and I worked for the same employer, it’s how we met. One day someone decided to alter a Dilbert cartoon to point out his or her personal opinion of the 2 of us. The modified “toon” indicated the only reason I even worked for the company was because of my wife, they then went onto imply that she was not a good employee and all I did was work on my golf ball collection. The cartoon was mailed to all the managers and my wife and myself. The company simply dismissed it as a prank from an hourly employee, I have long known who the individual was and rest assured it was neither a prank or the author just an hourly employee. Regardless everyone has moved on since that day, and I have finally gotten around to that golf ball collection.

I play a lot of golf; much of it is not played well. The course I belong to has a lot of water on it, combine that fact with my erratic play and the end result is a bunch of wet and lost balls. I am clearly not the only contributor in this matter.

A few weeks back the weather began to change and the various ponds began to clear and it became easier to see the half sunken balls in the water. On one slow day of golf, this is best defined as following 2 golfers in their 70’s playing every shot as if their last penny is at stake. I took the opportunity to take out my ball retriever and attempt to recover a few balls. The 1st days I recovered a dozen or so balls, the following day a few more…
Yesterday was my best day, recovering over 75 balls and my collection is now nearing 300.

I decided to see which balls had the biggest desire to go swimming with the fishes. So here is a small breakdown for you.

#1 Titleist, apparently the number one ball in golf because of the sheer number of lost balls.

#2 Top Flite, often referred to as “top rock” by avid golfers and Titleist purists.

#3 Nike, if it works for Tiger it must work for me.

Calloway is near the bottom of the list, not sure why but it may have to do the price of these. I always buy recycled balls from Fred Myer; my game wouldn’t know the difference between a ballata and a soft cover. Paying $15.00 dollars for a sleeve (a sleeve = 3 balls) seems a bit over the top for me.

There were a number of balls I had never heard of and 2 range balls, one was a stolen range ball from the city of Burnaby, as clearly stated on the ball. Someone actually took the time to drive, in a car, it over the US border just to lose it in our little pond.

The one ball that I really wonder about is the Maxfli “Noodle” which makes claims to the fact that it is long and soft. Is that an oxymoron?

It only took 7 years but I finally got around to actually collecting golf balls and I can only hope that the author of the initial cartoon has had more success in personal attacks on other employees. My understanding is that it was hardly the last of the anonymous mailings and said author continues to flourish. But hey at least I have some balls.