Does anybody else "Ball hunt?"

[mulliganer]

i do pick up balls if i see them whilst waiting for the front flight to clear,whilst helping
flight mates to find their balls along the hazard line,streams,ponds,shores etc.
but never holding up play.pro V,pro V1, tm penta, callway tour ix,nike tour etc
all kinds of balls.

WITB
Driver : TM R9 10.5 deg,white graman no5 shaft
Woods : TM R9 3 wood 15 deg,white graman no5 shaft
Maruman M sole 7 wood,graman cf340 shaft
Hybrid : TM rescue dual 22 deg,steelfibre shaft
TM rescue dual 25 deg,steelfibre shaft
Irons : Yamaha Inpres X 410v 6i to P,KBS Tour shafts
Wedges : Fourteen MT28 J.spec 48 deg,KBS Tour black shaft
TM Rac TP 52 deg 8 deg bounce 'Z' grooves,KBS Tour black shaft
Titleist BV spin milled 56 deg wedge,KBS Tour shaft
Putter : Scotty Cameron Studio Select Newport 2 or
Zen 'Zap' putter
Balls : Titliest ProV1 or whatever good balls i find on the course

[Sliceapotomus]

Sure, if I stumble across a ball, I will stop and pick it up.

However, if I am out and its fairly busy, I will not go into the woods to search for a ball.

[NCSU_MSE]

There's one spot on my local course where you can walk ~10 feet into the woods and find all the golf balls you want. Once a month I go in there with a grocery bag and fill it up. When I get home I wash and sort the balls into 3 categories:

Premium (ProV1s, Nike Ones, etc.)
Nice (PD Softs, NXTs, etc.)
Practice (XL3000's, Pinnacle Golds, etc.)


Last time out I found 14 ProV1s after just 5 minutes of hunting.

[elvis14]

I'll hunt if the course is backed up and I'm waiting around or if I'm in the woods looking for my ball, I'll take a look around. Basically, if I can ball hunt without slowing down a round and I feel like tromping around the woods, I'll go look. If you are ever short on balls here's an easy way to find them. If you are a hole with woods down the right hand side, go about 150 yards out past the white tees and take a right into the woods. You'll find lots of balls. Most people hit their good drives 220, think they hit them 270 so when the slice on into the woods they go out 200+ yards and start looking around (before they drop for stroke and distance....well distance plus 40 yards!). Also, you'll be more successful finding balls in the woods if you are on the 17th or 18th hole (guys get tired and stop looking late in the day).

For me the coolest thing about finding balls is the opportunity to play different balls. I've learned so much about different balls by playing ones that I've found. Played a full round yesterday with a Bridgestone e7 I had found. I lost it the woods on the 18th hole. I didn't find it but my playing partner went ball hunting while I finished the hole and he found 8 balls in 2 min.

[elvis14]

Double post deleted, sorry

[Slammin' Sam]

When I get home I wash and sort the balls into 3 categories:

I use pretty much the same classification system for balls I find, except that my "Practice" category seems to be mostly Wilson Ultras. More Nike Ones and Pro V1s would be nice but I'm not complaining

[Orange]

I work at a golf course and part of my job is to take care of the driving range. The tenth hole is adjacent to the range, so sometimes we get a lot of balls that carry into the range. When I pick them up in the ball-picker, I set those balls aside and can take any of them if I want. You'd also be surprised how many nice golf balls I find in the middle of the range, as if people decide to hit ProV1s on the range instead of a range ball...

I currently have a milk crate full of golf balls and a few extra ball boxes filled in my garage... 250 golf balls, about 75 of them are nice ProV1s or equivalent. For this reason, I don't usually go out of my way to find golf balls on the course because I can get them so easily at work.

If anyone else wants free golf, free lost balls, and free driving range buckets , you should highly consider working at a golf course!

[oakdale]

when i played this sunday, i found 6 balls around the parking lot, which is to the right of the 18th tee, including a Pro V1 and 2 Pentas. Whoever is slicing their tee shots off the clubhouse roof probably shouldn't be playing with expensive balls, but thanks guy, whoever you are.

[codwater]

Originally Posted by Leftygolfer

I find a ton walking too. It isn't just in the woods but out in the middle of the rough.

Man, I sure hope you aren't picking up balls that are in play from another group. I have seen people try and pick up poorly hit balls before and get chewed out by the who hit it. I think finding balls in bushes and such is fine, but if I see one "in the middle of the rough", I leave it alone.

[arogolf]

My local course has a wooded area to the right of the first hole, I just go 180 yds from the white tees about 30 yds in and load up my cargo shorts once a week. ProVs in the bag, the rest go to the range...

[jamo]

I used to more than I do now. It seems like courses (at least the ones that I've been going to) have been much busier this year than I remember them being. Maybe people have been dropping their memberships and playing public courses, I don't know, but it's been so busy I haven't had time to look for balls.

[DaSportsGuy]

A buddy of mine and I go "ball hawking" alot. Every other week or so we'll go out to a course and just slash our way through the wooded areas looking for lost golf balls. We have a great time doing it. Usually in a two or three our window of ball hawking we'll rake in upwards of 300 balls combined. Any good Pro V's I find go into my "game ball" collection to be used during my rounds.

[Topper]

Originally Posted by enis750

no......

I would rather pay $150 for 12 balls than risk getting lyme disease (ticks)

I agree with enis750!  Unless I can see the ball or otherwise have a really good idea where it's hiding, I will not enter brushy or high-grass areas to look for it.  We're talking about rough from which I couldn't play the ball as it lies anyway.  A golf ball isn't worth the risk for Lyme, poison ivy, or anything else.  Besides, I find enough balls as I walk the fairway without have to go on a safari to find them.

[jamo]

One thing about ball hunting: you have to make sure that the ball you pick up has no chance of being someone else's. For that reason, I tend to avoid balls in plain sight, and for the reason of ticks and bugs, I avoid long grass and the woods (which makes it kind of hard to find anything :-O).

[erniebanks]

Don't you know that golf balls learn very quickly. Once they get lost or into water they remember it an will try to duplicate it again. Never, never play an educated ball.

[darkhunter139]

Originally Posted by erniebanks

Don't you know that golf balls learn very quickly. Once they get lost or into water they remember it an will try to duplicate it again. Never, never play an educated ball.

Haha that's a good one :)

I don't really ball hunt, I will pick one up if I am sure no one else is playing it from another hole but I don't go looking for them in tall grass or the woods.

[gjsuicide]

Today, while looking for my partners golf ball in the bushes I found a TM PentaTP, Callway Touri(z), and a Prov1 within 5 feet of eachother.  Two of them were so close they were actually touching.  Not a bad find, but I usually dont go out of my way to find balls.  That find had me change the way I thought of "ball hunting".  This was a nicer course than I usually play, explains the caliber of balls I was finding.  And I finally found out where all the brand new 2011 golf club sets were actually being played...

[Inebriated]

I don't ball hunt, but I do pick up what I find, and I'll skim the trees down the edges of fairways. If I have lost a ball, I like knowing I just broke even by finding another.