I was watching golf the other day flipping through channels (with my?vast amount of free time I have!), and the thought occured to me: why hasn't someone put out a golf ball with an RFID tag in it that you can use to find lost balls?

RFID tags are cheap - the first use I heard for them was with Gillette putting them in boxes of razors - so they could easily be inserted into balls and the savings from finding more balls would (for golfers like me) be more than the cost of buying more expensive balls.

We already have golf carts with GPS on them to tell you how far you are from the hole, etc. Why not just use that for golf balls? That was my initial thought, but GPS devices are still too expensive - even if you know where your ball is, that doesn't mean you can get to it. If there's water near the hole I'm on, my ball is going in!

But, doing proper research before writing up my brillian idea revealed that yes, my idea is a good one, but also that I'm not the first. RadarGolf already exists. For a dozen balls, it'll cost you $40, and then a one time purchase of $350 for the locator (which also comes with a dozen balls).

The cost of the balls is decent, but I'd have to lose a?lot of balls on a regular basis to cover the $350. Now, if this were to get popular, then I could see golf courses justifying the cost to add them to golf carts. And that's probably the way it'll go - just put it next to the GPS locator!

Technorati Tags: golf | RFID | RadarGolf | GPS