Wired Magazine: No More Lost Balls

By Joshua Davis
June, 2004

His drives always hooked. Or sliced. Or simply disappeared into a stand of trees. So 10 years ago, mediocre golfer and software executive Chris Savarese swore he'd come up with a better way to find his lost balls. He did. This summer, his startup, RadarGolf, begins taking orders for the first golf-ball locator. The system works like this: Radio-frequency ID tags smaller than a grain of rice are embedded in the core of a ball during the manufacturing process. When the ball disappears into the bushes, the duffer

activates a handheld device that sends out a 915-MHz signal. The ball sends back its own signal, causing the handheld to beep faster and at a higher pitch as it gets closer to the ball.

Savarese sells the unit (with a dozen of the RFID balls) on the Web for $249. He predicts that handicaps across the country will start to fall as golfers avoid the stroke-and-distance penalty for lost balls. If only he could invent something to help the balls find the cup.

Tiny radio transceivers are embedded in the ball’s core.

Homing in: RadarGolf’s tracker picks up the ball’s signal.

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