Earth Day ShoutOut: For Businesses With Balls

As I mentioned yesterday, we're taking Earth Day right through the weekend with shoutouts for environmentally conscious golfers, golf companies and golf courses.

Ecobioball - A single use golf ball that's perfect for use where balls are just hit for swing practice, like from cruise liners.  This 100% biodegradable golf ball can take the full swing of a professional, yet biodegrades within 48 hours of hitting the water. The Spanish Ecobioball manufacturer claims that it won’t harm marine life and... awesomeness alert... the core of the ball even contains fish food.

Dixon Golf - Dixon Golf offers several different balls with different specifications. They're all eco-friendly and high performance, 100% recyclable and made from reprocessable materials. With the company's recycling program you can recycle any brand of used golf ball at a Dixon Golf retailer and get a credit towards the purchase of new balls.

Wilson Eco-Core - These are high performance balls with a core made from recycled rubber tires and packaging made from recycled board stock lessening negative environmental impact.

Lobster Balls - When news of an environmentally friendly golf ball made out of discarded lobster shells hit the wires recently, it quickly transcended golf media and went viral.  Developed by a team from The University of Maine and the Lobster Institute, a joint Canada-U.S. industry organization these balls are still in the prototype phase, but the amount of interest the story generated is proof that eco-freindly golf balls could be huge... as a business I mean.

Earth Week & Golf That's Good for the Environment

Yesterday marked the start of Earth Week, a time for putting environmental issues into the spotlight and focusing on our collective concern for the planet.  In principal at least.

There's a fairly widespread perception among non-golfers, that golfers, golf course developers and golf course owners consistently disregard environmental concerns for over-irrigation, abundant use of synthetic fertilizers and other environmentally irresponsible practices.


These days however, that perception is wrong is very often wrong.  Courses across the US... and around the world... are implementing innovative water conservation measures and using fewer chemicals.  More and more courses are taking part in environmental protection programs.  Justin Timberlake's Mirimichi golf complex in Millington, TN was the first course in the US to receive official Audubon Classic Sanctuary certification by Audubon International and the first in the Americas to receive certification from the Golf Environmental Organization (GEO). Many others have followed suit, and have found that not only is it more responsible to maintain an environmentally friendly course, it's also more sustainable and less expensive.

The products golfers use are also changing, albiet slowly. Dixon Golf is a company that's made an impact by introducing the world's first 100% eco-friendly golf ball, The Dixon Earth. It's a high performance ball that is completely recyclable. Their website has the details... about the ball and about the many other innovative things the company is doing for the environment. 

I've also discovered  an awesome new environmentally friendly way to get around the golf course. It's called the Linksbike. The concept is from BYOB (bring your own ball?) Eco Golf. Check it out in the video below, and see if you don't think it would make a pretty stellar Earth Day gift. 

Photo: via Mirimichi
Video: via BYOB Eco Golf