Dane Platt and William Carey discuss their unique golf ball recycling program while offering you a FREE sleeve of Earth Golf Balls for a test drive. See below.
When I think of an “Eco-friendly” golf ball, I can’t help but picture those exploding joke golf balls made of chalk that you tee up for your unsuspecting buddy.
Then I met Dane Platt and William Carey of Dixon Golf.
And they introduced me to the Earth Golf Ball, the world’s first high-performance 100% eco-friendly golf ball.
These guys didn’t just stop at making a really green golf ball (more about the ball in a second), but they activated a recycling program that gets golfers involved beyond just playing a round.
“Golf, in its essence, should the greenest of all sports. And yet our industry is still 10 years behind the times,” said William Carey.
Platt and Carey said that they want to incentivize golfers to recycle the standard golf balls that are made with heavy metals and do nothing for the environment. When you turn in any golf ball at a pro shop or store that carries the Earth golf ball, you receive a 50 cent discount on a new Earth ball. You get a $1 discount when you recycle a Dixon Earth ball. The program recycled more than 38,000 golf balls on Earth Day alone.
The Earth golf ball is organic to the core, and has replaced the heavy metals, like lead, tungsten and titanium, with a proprietary organic compound that is essentially like salt.
But is salt like chalk?
“The problem with completely biodegrable golf balls is that they do explode on the tee,” Dane pointed out. “So that doesn’t work so well for performance. What we have created is a high-performance ball that can be ground up and reused in all sorts of other new products, while we’re taking the heavy metals out of the environment.”
PGA Tour Partners sent a dozen balls to 125 golfers to test against the likes of Titleist, Nike and Callaway high-performance balls. The Earth golf ball received a 92 percent approval rating. When asked what the Earth ball is like compared to the competition, Dane said the quality is between a Titleist Pro V1 and the NXT Tour. The company even has a long drive champ in it’s corner, with Sean “The Beast” Fister using their Eco-Distance ball in competition.
“You can’t make a crappy ball, call it eco-friendly and expect anyone to buy it if it’s not going to help their game” William said.
A tip of the golf cap to Dane and William for not just making an eco-friendly golf ball, but for taking their drive farther by activating a terrific golf ball recycling program.
Tags: Dixon Golf, Earth Golf Ball, Eco-friendly golf ball
Posted in: Commerce & Ecology Series, Consuming Green Stuff, Green Social Media, Sustainable Marketing
Let me try these green golf balls out. I will give an honest evaluation. Great Idea! Let’s see what they can do.
Joel, send me your mailing address and I’ll ship a sleeve today. Thanks for participating.
Do they need to be used on a course, or does driving them for target practice, ala Maple Street Manor, count?
Anywhere that you can get a feel for the ball: On an actual golf course, or in an urban environment. Just Eubank last week, as a matter of fact.
OK Park…took them out and gave them a drive. Me and my two buddies were very impressed! The good/bad news the Dixon balls are getting a chance to fulfill their brand promise…I eventually (accidentally) launched all of them into the desert. It feels good to be such an earth friendly golfer. Thanks pal! Congratulations to DIXON-great idea!
To start, I use bridgestone balls religiously. That being said, the Dixon ball was not that bad. Off the tee (with a driver) it felt very heavy at times. On par 3′s, it felt great. Around the green and putting, it was right up there with the bridgestone balls. Great job Dixon. Looking forward to playing with them again.
Thanks, Jim, for giving the Earth ball a test drive. I’ve let the guys at Dixon know your vote has been counted. Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for playing.
So I took a sleeve of Dixon Earth balls and met my father for a round at Jackson Park in Seattle, a fairly short course with lots of trees and elevation change. We played the first 9 with our normal balls (my dad usually likes Noodles, I currently play the Titleist DT solos, TaylorMade TP Blacks, both gifts, or whatever decent I can scrounge up) to set a baseline.
On the 10th hole, the Earth Ball demonstrated its oneness with nature by flying off my dad’s usually consistent driver and depositing itself deep in a marsh 80 yards out. On the following hole, my dad blasted a drive that he thought fell short (about 250 yards or so) of where the same swing with a standard premium ball should have flown. Nonetheless, he managed to hit a high gap wedge that landed softly and spun back slightly to 10 feet. He then smoothly rolled it in for birdie.
The following hole I took my first drive with the Dixon ball and managed to smack it onto the edge of 300ish green, thanks to a medium-height flight of about 260 and some great roll. So despite initial skepticism, we each quickly managed a birdie with the Earth ball.
Things went pretty smoothly with the ball the rest of the way until I launched a strong drive directly into a large evergreen about 100 yards out, again I think it’s the ball trying to return to its natural roots. Now I’m not sure exactly how such a shot would have impacted a typical ball, but the Earth ball seemed to get the worst of the encounter. Despite its wound, I didn’t sense any change in performance the last few holes, though my swings at the end of round weren’t as pure as earlier.
Overall, we agreed the Earth ball performed about as well as our normal balls, but to form a stronger opinion we would need to do a proper “Pepsi Challenge” at a chipping/driving range and compare the Earth ball to a wider range of competitors. We were also curious if Dixon will make a ball for both high and low swing speeds???
Thank for the trial sleeve of golf balls to try. Being the type of golfer that loses 3 to 5 balls per 18 holes, it is imperative that the balls I leave behind in nature have as little adverse impact on the environment as possible. I shudder to think what environmental damage has occurred due to the estimated 900+ (lifetime) balls I have hit into woods, streams, wetlands, deserts, coastal marshes, etc.
I found the balls to have great feels in with my irons. The drives are as long as any other brand. I did find my drives sliced a little more than usual, but that could be just my old swing error returning. They Dixons do not seem as bright as Titlists, thus are harder to track on long drives and very difficult to find in the tall grass rough.
My only suggested inprovement is to improve the cover brightness.
Tried out the free balls, kudos for taking the heavy metals out of use, but what did you make this with? In all outward features it seems like a regular golf ball, but for my game it was like a rock! Different sound and inconsistency in both direction and length. I am not trying to be better than I am at the game but I am accustom to a softer feel and the ability to “shape” shots (move then left to right and right to left etc. I could not accomplish this, nor was the spin rate as pronounced, since I do not believe it stays on the club face very long. All in all, the bio degradeable properties or recycle (mulch) options make this a true plus for the environment. Thanks for the test drive!
Greetings I have already been trying to find most of the the best possible irons just for my own degree of play, the callawaygolf irons tend to be expensive for me now howevere, if I can find a good pre-owned group for the right total amount I’ve got to spend that might be great. Tell us the alternative brandnames are the most useful for a tolerable cost . thanks
Hi, just wandered by. I have a Callaway website. Can’t believe the amount of information out there. Looking for something else, but nice site. Have a good day.
Thanks for your note, Gracie. Seeing how you’re with Callaway, I thought you might be interested in CityGolfTour.com, ad site where amateur golfers can compete in national tournaments while playing their favorite home course. It’s very cool and something that will really promote golfing – and sell more Callawys – Check it out here: http://bit.ly/auXAE1 and please share with your golfing community.
Thank you.