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The other day I golfed on a course with a spectacular 18th hole. A narrow fairway, cut into a river bank, with a steep down slope on the river side of the fairway, and the dense brush of the natural rive

The other day I golfed on a course with a spectacular 18th hole. A narrow fairway, cut into a river bank, with a steep down slope on the river side of the fairway, and the dense brush of the natural riverbank on the up slope side provided a very challenging par 4. I was playing the white tees and on this hole, the white tee box is on a small plateau, at least 75 yards or so from the blue tee.

Play was slow, so while waiting to drive, I took a quick look in the brush beside the tee box. Just as I suspected, there were quite a few balls in there, and I pulled out about a dozen good ones in a few minutes. Spots like this often have some lost balls because the guys (probably guys) who duff their shots from the blue tee are probably a bit embarrassed about looking for their ball in the proximity of the white and red tees.

Unfortunately, I paid dearly for my find with an itchy skin irritation from some sort of noxious weed that must have been in that patch of rough. I had trouble getting to sleep that night - hard to scratch and sleep at the same time - so I had a bit of time to ruminate on the irresistible obsession many golfers have with looking for lost balls. I have a five- gallon pail full of used balls in my garage, so why was I so pleased to find a dozen more?

My middle of the night contemplation led to some speculation about how many lost balls there are in the world at any given time. So the next day I got on the Internet and found that I was not the only one asking this question. In fact, in 2001, a golf magazine actually did some more or less scientific research on the subject and came up with the estimate of about 2.56 billion golf balls that are lost each year around the world.

To put this number in perspective, I found out that the regulation golf ball weighs 1.62 ounces and is 1.68 inches in diameter in the U.S. and 1.62 inches in Britain. If put end to end, the lost golf balls in the world would equal the distance around the world at the equator, about 25,000 miles. The weight of all these balls is about 80,000 tons, about the size of an aircraft carrier or similar large ship.

Anyone who is familiar with math, or anyone who has read the "DaVinci Code", will notice that the numbers that measure a golf ball, 1.62 for both mass and size, are suspiciously close to 1.618, the number referred to in math as PHI, the "divine proportion" or the "golden section". This number is found frequently in nature as a ratio and has been used in architecture and art since the pyramids and the Parthenon. There is an explanation of the number in the DaVinci Code because Leonardo DaVinci used the ratio in his art and his inventions. This led me to speculate on whether or not the numbers were used intentionally by the inventor of the golf ball.

I was not able to find the answer, but the inventor of the precursor to the modern ball, a rubber ball, was Rev. Dr. Robert Adams, who may have also gone by the name of Robert Adam Paterson, who golfed at Carnoustie, Scotland, a course that has hosted the British Open. An educated Scot like Adams could very likely have been a Mason and well aware of the phenomenon of PHI.

I then wondered if the choice was made because the width of the ball has something to do with the length of the course. If you take 1.62 inches and multiply it by a nice round number like 100,000, you get 162,000 inches. Convert the inches resulting from that equation to yards, the result is 7290 yards, about the length of many courses, depending on which tee you hit from. Was course length determined by the width of the ball or was the width of the ball determined by course length?

Fortunately, my rash lasted only a day or so, but the itch to learn more about the relationship of the divine proportion to golf has not gone away. Could there be a relationship to why golf is the perfect game but so hard to perfect?

About the Author

Ron Strand is a college instructor, consultant and golfer with a mathematical fascination for golf balls.

rbank on the up slope side provided a very challenging par 4. I was playing the white tees and on this hole, the white tee box is on a small plateau, at least 75 yards or so from the blue tee.

Play was slow, so while waiting to drive, I took a quick look in the brush beside the tee box. Just as I suspected, there were quite a few balls in there, and I pulled out about a dozen good ones in a few minutes. Spots like this often have some lost balls because the guys (probably guys) who duff their shots from the blue tee are probably a bit embarrassed about looking for their ball in the proximity of the white and red tees.

Unfortunately, I paid dearly for my find with an itchy skin irritation from some sort of noxious weed that must have been in that patch of rough. I had trouble getting to sleep that night - hard to scratch and sleep at the same time - so I had a bit of time to ruminate on the irresistible obsession many golfers have with looking for lost balls. I have a five- gallon pail full of used balls in my garage, so why was I so pleased to find a dozen more?

My middle of the night contemplation led to some speculation about how many lost balls there are in the world at any given time. So the next day I got on the Internet and found that I was not the only one asking this question. In fact, in 2001, a golf magazine actually did some more or less scientific research on the subject and came up with the estimate of about 2.56 billion golf balls that are lost each year around the world.

To put this number in perspective, I found out that the regulation golf ball weighs 1.62 ounces and is 1.68 inches in diameter in the U.S. and 1.62 inches in Britain. If put end to end, the lost golf balls in the world would equal the distance around the world at the equator, about 25,000 miles. The weight of all these balls is about 80,000 tons, about the size of an aircraft carrier or similar large ship.

Anyone who is familiar with math, or anyone who has read the "DaVinci Code", will notice that the numbers that measure a golf ball, 1.62 for both mass and size, are suspiciously close to 1.618, the number referred to in math as PHI, the "divine proportion" or the "golden section". This number is found frequently in nature as a ratio and has been used in architecture and art since the pyramids and the Parthenon. There is an explanation of the number in the DaVinci Code because Leonardo DaVinci used the ratio in his art and his inventions. This led me to speculate on whether or not the numbers were used intentionally by the inventor of the golf ball.

I was not able to find the answer, but the inventor of the precursor to the modern ball, a rubber ball, was Rev. Dr. Robert Adams, who may have also gone by the name of Robert Adam Paterson, who golfed at Carnoustie, Scotland, a course that has hosted the British Open. An educated Scot like Adams could very likely have been a Mason and well aware of the phenomenon of PHI.

I then wondered if the choice was made because the width of the ball has something to do with the length of the course. If you take 1.62 inches and multiply it by a nice round number like 100,000, you get 162,000 inches. Convert the inches resulting from that equation to yards, the result is 7290 yards, about the length of many courses, depending on which tee you hit from. Was course length determined by the width of the ball or was the width of the ball determined by course length?

Fortunately, my rash lasted only a day or so, but the itch to learn more about the relationship of the divine proportion to golf has not gone away. Could there be a relationship to why golf is the perfect game but so hard to perfect?

About the Author

Ron Strand is a college instructor, consultant and golfer with a mathematical fascination for golf balls.