Someone is already doing 'tagged' golf balls. Top Golf, and Callaway.

[PinkyMacGodess]

Top Golf is using Callaway RFID tagged golf balls. Supposedly, they can tell how hard you hit it, and how far it's gone. Interesting...

When will Callaway tagged balls be available for 'the rest of us' who score their gold outings by how many balls they lose?

Don't count on it... They sell far too many balls to people like me, and it's the whole golf ball industry. Imagine someone selling balls with trackers in them. I'd finally be able to play 18 holes without losing many balls. I could play a year with 6 or 8 balls. The ball industry would collapse!!!

Top Golf's tagged balls can only be used at their driving range venues.

 

[fischersd]

Top Golf is using Callaway RFID tagged golf balls. Supposedly, they can tell how hard you hit it, and how far it's gone. Interesting...

When will Callaway tagged balls be available for 'the rest of us' who score their gold outings by how many balls they lose?

Don't count on it... They sell far too many balls to people like me, and it's the whole golf ball industry. Imagine someone selling balls with trackers in them. I'd finally be able to play 18 holes without losing many balls. I could play a year with 6 or 8 balls. The ball industry would collapse!!!

Top Golf's tagged balls can only be used at their driving range venues.

Heh. I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find anyone willing to drop $20-$30 each on golf balls.

...and I'd be really skeptical about them surviving the rigors of being a golf ball - the impact fatigue alone. (phones get micro-fractures in their system boards every time you drop them from sufficient height). Getting wacked hard enough to travel 350+ yards?!

How Top Golf would work - the RFID is only telling the sensors behind the screen which ball it is when it makes impact (to identify the golfer). They have radar guns for speed and sensors to help with force and angle projections.

 

[chabig]

When will Callaway tagged balls be available for 'the rest of us'

Never. Top Golf is an entertainment venue around an instrumented driving range. The balls won't work anywhere else.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Heh. I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find anyone willing to drop $20-$30 each on golf balls.

...and I'd be really skeptical about them surviving the rigors of being a golf ball - the impact fatigue alone. (phones get micro-fractures in their system boards every time you drop them from sufficient height). Getting wacked hard enough to travel 350+ yards?!

How Top Golf would work - the RFID is only telling the sensors behind the screen which ball it is when it makes impact (to identify the golfer). They have radar guns for speed and sensors to help with force and angle projections.

I read that Top Golf has a 'tagged' ball that will, itself, tell how hard it was hit, and how far off center, etc. I don't know if it's real, or just an idea someone has. I was kind of drawn to it. Securing the RFID chip would be pretty easy, as it's all passive. It sounded like this possibly fictitious ball had some active component to it. *shrug* I thought it interesting....

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Never. Top Golf is an entertainment venue around an instrumented driving range. The balls won't work anywhere else.

I wouldn't think they would, where I was going is if they are using them, and Callaway made them, perhaps Callaway could come up with a new golf ball, in the not to distant future that would provide read outs as you were playing, on power, stroke, distance. And people WOULD pay for expensive balls. I found a ball that turned out to be over $60 for a dozen. Paying $150 to $250 for an instrumented ball would be nothing to people carrying $5,000 of clubs and other detritus around to impress people.