Millions of Golf Balls Ended Up Here

Photo: Flickr/Legoliner✈Pilot

There’s nothing quite like a game of golf. Spend the afternoon soaking up the outdoors, getting some exercise and hoping for that one good hit. But as all golf-lovers know, the sport can get expensive.

Enter Golf Ball Planet, an online retailer that collects recycled golf balls, refurbishes them and sells them for huge discounts. The company has rescued millions of golf balls from the landfill since it was established 20 years ago.

So, does Golf Ball Planet have an army of staff scouring your local golf course for forgotten balls? Well, not exactly. It accepts golf balls that players and outdoor enthusiasts recover from courses and surrounding areas and cleans them up to be sold on the cheap.

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Those of you that may be wary about using recycled balls can rest easy. The company tests used balls to make sure they are ready for reuse and sorts them into four categories – Mint, Grade A, Grade B and Grade C – to ensure you really get the quality you’re looking for.

In addition to saving cash, recycling and reusing sports equipment like golf balls saves a ton of raw materials and keeps useful items out of the landfill. No one knows for sure how many golf balls are lost each year, but U.S. estimates reach around 300 million, according to Arizona-based Dixon Golf. That amounts to a ton of expended energy and virgin materials for something that may have only been hit once.

To keep the reuse revolution alive the course, Golf Ball Planet recently started collecting gently-used golf accessories for its online store. Simply send in your unwanted gloves, shoe spikes and other accessories, and the company will resell them to another enthusiast to complete their collection.