The main tank, brimful with ideas. Enjoy them, discuss them, take them. - Of course, this is also the #1 place for new submissions!
By lightningshorts
#1430
A golf ball with a transmitter and a device that clips to your belt. This works very much like a global positioning system which allows you to locate your ball after hitting it and also reads the distance of your drive.
By PoolShark
#1544
I've been trying so hard for the last 2 years to work out a way to do this.
Biggest challenge::
How do you build the golf ball?? How do you market it??

"Callaway Golf had $11.3 million in net golf ball sales in the third quarter of 2002, and $57.5 million in net sales through the first nine months of 2002, company officials reported"

The golf ball technology itself could be a winner.
In addition, you could set up flags with recievers and get feedback from the green to your GPS device.

hope to hear from you soon ;-D
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By Steve
#1557
Don't know: What's the normal price of a golf ball? How expensive would it get if you add a transmitter to the bill? And how many golf balls would you have to find to make up for the costs of the GPS device?
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By Michael D. Grissom
#2206
Inside the ball, I would use a Pizzio (sp) electric crystal (like that used in some disposable bic lighters to create the spark) to charge (energy from hitting the ball) a miniature tantalum capacitor (5 cent power source - no battery required) which would supply the power to a miniature EMP (electromagnetic pulse) generator ckt which is fired when it receives an impulse from your belt clip tranciever (1 cent coil). All this could be packaged into a pea sized module centered in the golf ball (how golf balls are made anyway) and at 500 yards would be as accurate as a GPS. In mass produced golf ball quantities, it would add roughly 25 cents to the ball (if the peas were made with child slave labor in China). It's doable and I like the price!

Now, if I can only find a way to get it inside my gyroscopic radio controlled golf ball invention. :-)
By polsenca
#3201
Love this idea and I've been thinking about this one for awhile. No idea how to get GPS into the ball though. I think the real selling point for this product would not be for just distance but in golf teaching. Nice golf courses today have GPS in the golf cart and at the green so you can figure out distance to the hole. A gps ball could tie into this as well. You could find out how far you drove a ball, you could track a lost ball or one that has gone into deep rough. But the big one is you could track every hit in a round and provide this to a golf pro for analysis.

It would/could show hooks vs slices, proper vs improper club selection. For example, on each par 4 you hit your 3 iron 150 yards and it sliced. A pro could work on this with you or advise you to hit your 5 iron which you were crushing 185 right down the middle.

Pete
By horatio
#7157
Yes, as I struggle to take up the game in retirement and having experience the GPS golf cart, I was quick to imagine a course that would require golfers to use club balls embedded with chips. The payback to the golfer would be the reduction in searching for "lost" balls and to the club faster rounds, hence more play and more fees. I have imagined that the chip must be embedded in the ball core at time of maufacture, but that would provoke a ball manufacturer seizing the rights and then deliberatly blocking its use to promote more ball sales.

I note that strides are being made in ball flight charateristics using nano technology (see below). I wonder if that will not ultimately be the process that permits a "ball finder" application. I imagine a surface coating applied after manufacture or right into the skin itself that is a passive reflector sensed by a cart device that would in turn show you on the cart's GPS display screen its location.

Summary:
NanoDynamics is pleased to introduce NDMX technology — state of the art materials and construction of the next generation of golf balls. NDMX technology focuses on the physics of a golf ball's rotation. Rotation of a golf ball increases turbulence which generates lift — which is a good thing. But when the rotation of a ball is off-axis, then the ball will tend to hook or slice — which is a bad thing. By engineering the golf ball in a way that the energy transfer from the club head to the ball is more efficient, you have the possibility of generating lift and distance without as much spin. (by company NanoDynamics, Inc.)
Visit the company.
By sneezyalex
#7276
They have something a little diffrent. You hit the ball and it keeps track of how far it was hit. You need to look at the ball though.
By sk8mad85
#8324
good idea but it would need to be a sturdy little transmitter and i think it would cost too much money, i would just stick to looking for it.
By xanado
#8429
I agree with sk8mad.

Michael, how would your module cope with the enormous kinetic energy resulting from the impact of the club head, and more imprtantly, how would it cope with the physical deformation of the golf ball after impact (the deformation is VERY significant, I can assure you).
By mike123
#8444
plus if you had more than one person using this system on the course, the balls signals might get mixed up.
By sebin
#10608
It is just an out off box idea....why not use fishing rod technique. A a very long vine is pressent ln the golf stick and other is attached to the ball...you hit the ball it goes as far as it wants since it is attached to the thread we cud easily track it down.
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