At every tour event, the pros hit thousands of balls on the range and at the practice areas. Most if not all of the balls are new balls. So I'm wondering what happens with all those nice, ONCE hit practice balls? Are they sold as, "Practice balls" ? Just wondering, Any one know the facts?
I would guess that they become range balls for the course after the event is concluded. Most courses that host tour events tend to have pretty high end range balls anyway so running the ball picker and adding them to the regular range ball collection would make sense.
Actually, what they do is collect them and sort them back out to the players (or whatever ball manufacturer is endorsing them.) Even though the balls look "brand new" most have been hit a few times at other ranges. Course usually does not collect and keep them and even if they did, would not intergrate them into their regular bin of range balls. If you ever go to the range of courses that hold PGA events (in my case, Torrey Pines), you're not going see too many Pro V1's or high end practice balls, you're still hitting the rocks with black or red stripes on them.
I do know that Tiger, along with a few other, hit their own specially made practice balls.
Actually, what they do is collect them and sort them back out to the players (or whatever ball manufacturer is endorsing them.) Even though the balls look "brand new" most have been hit a few times at other ranges. Course usually does not collect and keep them and even if they did, would not intergrate them into their regular bin of range balls. If you ever go to the range of courses that hold PGA events (in my case, Torrey Pines), you're not going see too many Pro V1's or high end practice balls, you're still hitting the rocks with black or red stripes on them.
I do know that Tiger, along with a few other, hit their own specially made practice balls.
Actually, what they do is collect them and sort them back out to the players (or whatever ball manufacturer is endorsing them.) Even though the balls look "brand new" most have been hit a few times at other ranges. Course usually does not collect and keep them and even if they did, would not intergrate them into their regular bin of range balls. If you ever go to the range of courses that hold PGA events (in my case, Torrey Pines), you're not going see too many Pro V1's or high end practice balls, you're still hitting the rocks with black or red stripes on them.
I do know that Tiger, along with a few other, hit their own specially made practice balls.
Not all of them. At Castle Pines for the International they put out thousands of new Titleists for the players to hit, and the guys who worked there ended up with most of them. I have a friend who used to work on the greens crew there, and he had an endless supply of once hit Titleist balls after each International.
If I "had it" like Tiger does, I'd just have a Nike rep on standby with a wheelbarrow full of brand new first line balls with my name already tattooed on them, placing them on the tee for me to hit with no thought of where they would end up...
I worked at a golf course which hosted (and it still does) a PGA tournament and we boxed them up and shipped back to the PGA Tour home office. On a side note, one of caddies (a local guy) put a bunch in his pockets. We caught him and for his community service he had to come and pick the practice balls out of the woods. It was about 98* when he did this and probably felt like 110*. The next year he didn't try and steal any practice balls. Oh by the way, Tiger doesn't play in the event (it isn't a huge event and he played it his 1st year and was kicked out of a casino since he wasn't old enough. He swore he would never come back because of it and he hasn't yet), but every player hit the same Pro VI's.
December 21st, 2007, 10:41 AM
What happens with the Practice balls?
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