I want to talk about marking golf balls...

[Justsomeguy]

11 hours ago, Arlin964 said:

For those of you who use ball marking to identify strike on the club face (whether primarily or secondarily) do you get bothered by the sharpie marks on club faces?

 

I like knowing where impact is, but I also don’t love sharpie on my club face. Do you clean that off after each round?

It wipes off with just a towel. Sharpie doesn't stick to steel like it would something absorbant.

[Justsomeguy]

1 hour ago, schaperb90 said:

See maybe this is wrong of me, but these people claiming they can't be bothered by marking a golf ball are the type of people I only ever play a money match with once. It immediately makes me suspicious. Its not hard to do, I not trying to tell anyone to mark a ball like me, or do anything extravagant, just mark it so you KNOW its yours. I think everyone here has played golf with a guy who always seems to find his ball. I've noticed these guys NEVER have marks. You can never say with 100% certainty a ball from the tall grass, woods, etc. is yours if it doesn't have a mark. 

 

Again, like I said when I started this thread. If I am just playing golf with buddies, no match, just out to have fun I don't care at all whether someone has a mark or not, or for that matter, counts the 2 footer they missed as good. But if you want to play a match for cash, totally different story. Its a "gentleman's game" for sure, but in my experience on golf courses, gentleman are few and far between these days when moneys on the line.

If you're playing money games with people bad enough to be regularly in a spot that dropping a new ball makes all the difference, you should probably just let them go and keep collecting.

[Ghostwedge]

On 11/10/2022 at 9:40 PM, Justsomeguy said:

I'd note that golfers by and large are a little ocd. Not the weekender who grabs a dozen Marathons from the pro shop before teeing off. But the die-hards. We're all a little off.

So I love this thread and it doesn't surprise me at all that many of us have very specific ways of marking balls.

I'm gonna attach another picture of mine just bc it delights me for being interpretative dance level silly as a ball mark, but it's part of my method of rebelling against the strictures that are unavoidable in this game. You know, square-ish clubface and neutral plane...

I was talking to a pro shop owner the other day. He hates guys like you, makes it hard to fill his used ball jar. Nobody wants to buy a ball marked up like that. lol

[Double Mocha Man]

19 minutes ago, Ghostwedge said:

I was talking to a pro shop owner the other day. He hates guys like you, makes it hard to fill his used ball jar. Nobody wants to buy a ball marked up like that. lol

 

I won't buy AAAA balls online anymore.  Besides all the weird personal markings, they have unwanted course and corporate logos.  They're a mess...

[Ghostwedge]

2 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

 

I won't buy AAAA balls online anymore.  Besides all the weird personal markings, they have unwanted course and corporate logos.  They're a mess...

I play and walk north of 100 rd's a year and find a lot of balls, rarely lose one myself but have time to look for em while waiting on 4-5 hackers in carts ahead of me. People aren't too crazy with ball marks where I live, what's weird is the balls I find. Majority are either Pro V's or really inexpensive balls. I give the Pro Vs to my son and the others to the local school.golf programs.

[schaperb90]

20 hours ago, Justsomeguy said:

If you're playing money games with people bad enough to be regularly in a spot that dropping a new ball makes all the difference, you should probably just let them go and keep collecting.

 

You can't always play people in a match straight up... That's what the handicap system is for. So yea there are times I'm playing against guys spraying it all over the place, but if they have sufficient rounds on their handicap, this is already baked into the strokes they are getting. So yea, when they find a prov but maybe not their prov, it can change a match. 

[Justsomeguy]

1 hour ago, schaperb90 said:

 

You can't always play people in a match straight up... That's what the handicap system is for. So yea there are times I'm playing against guys spraying it all over the place, but if they have sufficient rounds on their handicap, this is already baked into the strokes they are getting. So yea, when they find a prov but maybe not their prov, it can change a match. 

That's fair.

[Double Mocha Man]

 

If I'm in a match with my unmarked ball and draw my tee shot into the left rough, and find 3 Titleist ProV1's, I always play the one from the most difficult and distant lie.  I pick up the other two balls and ignore the guy running after me and screaming from the adjacent fairway.

[scott406]

Most everyone in my group plays ProV1

I try to play golf balls that no one else plays like Snell or Wilson or Srixon

I still mark my ball so everyone knows it's mine

I was the only one playing yellow ones but then someone else my group started playing them

I mark my ball with 2 blue dots under the number. I would use purple but another person in my group uses that color.

Right now I am playing the Wilson Triad. No one else in the group plays them but I still mark them

I do have to be careful when I mark my Golf balls because if my wife gets a hold of one, she likes to draw all over the ball with a cat, hearts or her initials.

I do not want to explain that to the fellas

 

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by scott406

[Lord Viking]

Sharpie  marking affects spin & aerodynamics, so I never mark.

Haven't you guys seen the testing? 

[North Butte]

9 hours ago, Lord Viking said:

Sharpie  marking affects spin & aerodynamics, so I never mark.

Haven't you guys seen the testing? 

Statistics show that blue Sharpies are best for distance, red Sharpies for dispersion. And all Sharpie marks should be kept well away from the seam.

And you can't argue with "statistics". No sir. 

 

P.S. Also black Sharpie marks indicate deep seated psychological issues. But we're all civilized here, so that should not be an issue. 

[nsxguy]

9 hours ago, North Butte said:

Statistics show that blue Sharpies are best for distance, red Sharpies for dispersion. And all Sharpie marks should be kept well away from the seam.

And you can't argue with "statistics". No sir. 

 

P.S. Also black Sharpie marks indicate deep seated psychological issues. But we're all civilized here, so that should not be an issue. 

 

You seem to have forgotten that 115% of all statistics on the internet are made up,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,  +/- 10% of course.

[Mrgreen36]

On 11/14/2022 at 6:51 PM, Double Mocha Man said:

 

If I'm in a match with my unmarked ball and draw my tee shot into the left rough, and find 3 Titleist ProV1's, I always play the one from the most difficult and distant lie.  I pick up the other two balls and ignore the guy running after me and screaming from the adjacent fairway.

I knew it was you. No one thinks anyone hits the ball left.... 😆 

[johnnybogey]

I put my mobile number on every ball hoping that the good samaritan that finds my ball will call to return it.

[Double Mocha Man]

8 minutes ago, johnnybogey said:

I put my mobile number on every ball hoping that the good samaritan that finds my ball will call to return it.

 

... and drive it over to your house?  Or send it parcel post?  Question: Has anyone ever called you?

[Boricua Golf]

I am one of the only ones in my group that plays the left dash (only two of us to be exact) so normally we know who's ball it is, that said, doesn't matter the golf ball I always draw a red line on the clear side of the ball (opposite of the "-Pro V1"), for alignment purposes but it also identifies my ball...

[Double Mocha Man]

1 minute ago, Boricua Golf said:

I am one of the only ones in my group that plays the left dash (only two of us to be exact) so normally we know who's ball it is, that said, doesn't matter the golf ball I always draw a red line on the clear side of the ball (opposite of the "-Pro V1"), for alignment purposes but it also identifies my ball...

 

Okay, here are some thoughts.  You are in a tournament and drive your ball into the trees on the right.  You go in, find it, and play it.  Turns out it was the ball you lost two days ago and in a much better position.

 

Or, there are two balls center fairway, one waaaay up there, 50 yards closer to the green.  It's got your mark... you play it.  Turns out it's the ball you lost a month ago and got there via a wicked slice from the guy who found it and and just played it from the adjacent hole.

 

I don't mark my golf ball.  Which, in a way, is "marking" my ball.  I think I'm the only person at my club who doesn't take a Sharpie to his ball so a non-mark becomes an identifier.  Of course I know the brand, sub-brand and number... that's all I need.

[johnnybogey]

44 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

 

... and drive it over to your house?  Or send it parcel post?  Question: Has anyone ever called you?

 

was kidding 🙂

 

Honestly, I don't mark my ball these days as I lose them too often, lol.
Used to draw a line for putting alignment but nowadays, I simply use Callaway triple track balls or my goto ball AVX which have extended lines on each side of the logo.

[schaperb90]

4 hours ago, Double Mocha Man said:

 

Okay, here are some thoughts.  You are in a tournament and drive your ball into the trees on the right.  You go in, find it, and play it.  Turns out it was the ball you lost two days ago and in a much better position.

 

Or, there are two balls center fairway, one waaaay up there, 50 yards closer to the green.  It's got your mark... you play it.  Turns out it's the ball you lost a month ago and got there via a wicked slice from the guy who found it and and just played it from the adjacent hole.

 

I don't mark my golf ball.  Which, in a way, is "marking" my ball.  I think I'm the only person at my club who doesn't take a Sharpie to his ball so a non-mark becomes an identifier.  Of course I know the brand, sub-brand and number... that's all I need.

 

I mean sure these situations you are describing could happen, but the odds are as low as it gets. It's essentially a certainty when you find your ball with your mark that it's your ball, especially if you use more than 1 color. For these situations to happen, I would have to lose a yellow marked number 2 for example, go through the rest of the dozen, then happen to be playing and using another yellow marked number 2 on a hole I lost the other and or a hole where I encountered someone playing my old ball they found. Its probably similar odds to winning the lotto. Sure it happens, but will basically 0% chance it happens to me. You can't really think those situations are likely to happen and that not marking a ball is somehow a better mark then an actual mark. 

[Double Mocha Man]

44 minutes ago, schaperb90 said:

 

I mean sure these situations you are describing could happen, but the odds are as low as it gets. It's essentially a certainty when you find your ball with your mark that it's your ball, especially if you use more than 1 color. For these situations to happen, I would have to lose a yellow marked number 2 for example, go through the rest of the dozen, then happen to be playing and using another yellow marked number 2 on a hole I lost the other and or a hole where I encountered someone playing my old ball they found. Its probably similar odds to winning the lotto. Sure it happens, but will basically 0% chance it happens to me. You can't really think those situations are likely to happen and that not marking a ball is somehow a better mark then an actual mark. 

 

I realize the two examples are far-fetched.  Again, at my club, everyone marks their ball... so my non-mark is unique.