How do you mark your ball for identification?

[Missouri Swede]

My initials in lower case.  Push them together, they combine to kind of form the Greek letter phi

[newtogolf]

I use a Check Go Pro to draw a blue or green line and a dot on my ball.  

[pumaAttack]

12 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

So.... when you're waiting on the tee on #6, you just redraw it.  I do that a lot.  Helps use up some time on a slow round... not much but it's something.

I have been real board waiting at the tee and drawn all over my ball.  Real elaborate scenes and logos, etc.

[Golfingdad]

4 minutes ago, pumaAttack said:

I have been real board waiting at the tee and drawn all over my ball.  Real elaborate scenes and logos, etc.

Are you Duffy Waldorf?

(Actually, I think other people - maybe his daughter - draw those designs for him) :P

[pumaAttack]

2 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

Are you Duffy Waldorf?

(Actually, I think other people - maybe his daughter - draw those designs for him) :P

 

haha yeah, kind of.  I don't usually do it and its only to the cheap balls, never to the ProV1s.  

[pganapathy]

I put my initials on the ball (KGP) and make it big so that it makes identifying my ball easy.  I never really use the alignment aid on the ball while putting, so have no concerns about so much distractions on the ball

[Gator Hazard]

1 hour ago, Hardspoon said:

I actually cut the tip of a Sharpie with a knife so that the diameter is exactly the same as a dimple...makes the dots really easy - one press and it's done.  It was more prompted by my (mild) OCD than by time, but it works!

Brilliant!  I am doing that from now on, much easier than doing circles or filling it in.  I too use dots in the dimples.  I mark my balls by putting three dots in a triangle on four sides of the ball so that I don't have to lift it.  I have yet to play any really serious golf where I would need to mark my ball differently for a provisional and so the times I have had to hit provisional I usually just use a different brand of ball or dont give a crap and smack another one out there (it isn't as if I am good enough to put two balls in a row in the same general direction that often).  If I ever get to a point where I play competitively I will just add a dash or something to my provisional.  I usually make sure to clean and scrub my clubs and prep my bag the night before I go out for a round and part of that process is checking the amount of golf balls I have in my bag and that are marked and ready.  I carry a sharpie with me in my bag as well just in case but it doesn't take much time to mark up some balls the night before, even for a bad golfer like me. 

Before I mark my balls I always make sure to give them a good scrubbing and dry them off, no one likes to play with dirty balls.

[Hardspoon]

35 minutes ago, Gator Hazard said:

Brilliant!  I am doing that from now on, much easier than doing circles or filling it in.  

Cool...hope it works out for you.  It took a bit of careful cutting to get the tip rounded off so it "fills" the entire dimple, but it was worth it, and I assume it will last pretty much forever since that's all I use it for.

I actually mark a few balls with a different color and keep those in my bag specifically to use for provisionals.

[Golfingdad]

1 hour ago, Gator Hazard said:

... much easier than doing circles or filling it in.

If you think something can be "much" easier than filling in a dimple with a sharpie, then I'm going to guess this is going to give you nightmares:

[Gator Hazard]

9 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

If you think something can be "much" easier than filling in a dimple with a sharpie, then I'm going to guess this is going to give you nightmares:

Gaaak!!  Scantrons!  

[ScouseJohnny]

No need to mark, I usually play a Noodle soft. Marking one of those would be kind of like marking your Yugo in the parking lot of a beachside Hamptons resort.

[gregsandiego]

On 2/24/2016 at 7:51 PM, Pretzel said:

Dots are much easier to draw on a dimpled surface than any form of line. Just fill in a dimple.

I don't want easy to draw, I want quick to identify. My golfing buddies all know if they see a poorly drawn orange G it's mine. I draw it in 2 places. 

Yeah it looks like shit, but it's quick.

[bkuehn1952]

On 2/2/2016 at 1:42 PM, DaveP043 said:

I learned from someone else's misfortune.  Playing with a guy in a tournament at my club.  He hit his first near the OB, just over the crest of a hill, so he hit a provisional too.  We found them both.  They were marked the same.  He couldn't identify which was the first and which was the provisional.  He had to go back and hit 5 from the tee.  ALWAYS make sure you can tell your provisional from your original ball.

 

I saw this today.  Not knowing the correct approach, I had to dig around in the Decisions.  I did know that if a player hit two balls and the player could not distinguish between the two and one was OB and one was in bounds, the Decisions indicated that the ball in bounds was the provisional.  On that basis, it seemed unfair to force the player back to the tee to hit "5" when both balls were in bounds, but unidentifiable between provisional and 1st ball.

Here is the Decision:

Situation 4:Both balls are found in bounds, whether in a playable or an unplayable lie, and (1) one ball is in a water hazard and the other is not or (2) both balls lie through the green or in a bunker.

Solution 4:One could argue that both balls are lost. However, it would be inequitable to require the player to return to the tee, playing 5, when the player has found both balls but does not know which is the original and which the provisional. Accordingly, the player must select one of the balls, treat it as his provisional ball and abandon the other.

I understand this is off topic but it did not seem efficient to start a thread in the Rules section.

These type of discussion are good for me.  I learn something new every time I am forced to refer to the Rules & Decisions.  And @DaveP043 is absolutely right to make sure you know which ball is the original and which is the provisional before proceeding down that path.

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, bkuehn1952 said:

I saw this today.  Not knowing the correct approach, I had to dig around in the Decisions.  I did know that if a player hit two balls and the player could not distinguish between the two and one was OB and one was in bounds, the Decisions indicated that the ball in bounds was the provisional.  On that basis, it seemed unfair to force the player back to the tee to hit "5" when both balls were in bounds, but unidentifiable between provisional and 1st ball.

Here is the Decision:

Situation 4:Both balls are found in bounds, whether in a playable or an unplayable lie, and (1) one ball is in a water hazard and the other is not or (2) both balls lie through the green or in a bunker.

Solution 4:One could argue that both balls are lost. However, it would be inequitable to require the player to return to the tee, playing 5, when the player has found both balls but does not know which is the original and which the provisional. Accordingly, the player must select one of the balls, treat it as his provisional ball and abandon the other.

I understand this is off topic but it did not seem efficient to start a thread in the Rules section.

These type of discussion are good for me.  I learn something new every time I am forced to refer to the Rules & Decisions.  And @DaveP043 is absolutely right to make sure you know which ball is the original and which is the provisional before proceeding down that path.

You're right about the decision, so our resolution at that time was unnecessarily penal.  That was relatively early in my rule-consciousness, so I'm hoping we asked the pro for a ruling, but I honestly don't remember.  I also don't know when that decision was added, I suppose there's a possibility that we played it correctly at the time, based on the then-current rules.  Anyway, proper identification of each ball you play a good habit to get into.

[jsgolfer]

Saw this one and it was pretty funny:

Although not as good as @DaveP043, which tells you to bring it too Dave at the Stoneleigh Tavern when found.    

[DaveP043]

Just now, jsgolfer said:

Although not as good as @DaveP043, which tells you to bring it too Dave at the Stoneleigh Tavern when found.    

And that works!  When we were playing last Saturday, we saw a ball in the middle of the 12th fairway.  Rolled up on it, and it was one of my balls, I think from 2013.  I found out later that the group ahead had found it, and knew I was in the next group, so they left it there for me.  

[Al B Tross]

49 minutes ago, jsgolfer said:

Saw this one and it was pretty funny:

Although not as good as @DaveP043, which tells you to bring it too Dave at the Stoneleigh Tavern when found.    

That's a good one - love the creative and funny angles. Reminds me of the one I a few weeks ago. One of my favorites so far.