How golf equipment is made

What happens to golf balls after they're used?

With over 1 billion golf balls produced annually, an estimated 300 million to 1.5 billion are lost worldwide. On average, thousands of balls are left behind on each course, often ending up in ponds, forests, and beaches. While many golf courses recover and reuse some of these balls, studies suggest countless remain unretrieved.

The greatest golf shots of all time

Television began capturing golf shots in 1954 when NBC first aired the US Open. Since then, cameras have captured the once-in-a-lifetime shots of the Tour's top players. Watch this Mojo video to learn which golfer hit the only sudden-death-ace ever, see Jack Nicklaus hit the flag at the 1972 US Open, and Tiger Woods' iconic chip at the Masters in 2005.

How tea gets made

Tea is one of the most consumed beverages in the world, and this video walks us through the process of supplying it from farms to our mugs. Workers handpick leaves, ferment them, and dry them as part of this involved operation. Follow along for a scientific understanding of the many steps it takes to produce tea and appreciate the detail and effort to create its flavor, aroma, and color.

An in-depth analysis of Augusta National, the home of the Masters

This in-depth analysis of Augusta National Golf Club, the famed site of the annual Masters Tournament, breaks down the course's complex greens and tricky layout. Golf Digest editor Luke Kerr-Dineen walks viewers through the course's green book, demonstrating just how difficult Augusta is compared to other courses. More than anything, it gives you some context to better understand why your favorite golfers might struggle with the course's punishing slopes.

The history of the tennis racket

Today's tennis rackets are made from lightweight composite materials, which is a big reason power, speed, and spin dominate today's game. But they weren't always built this way. This Top Sport Gear video shows the evolution of the tennis racket, from its start as medieval paddles, to the wood rackets of the early 1900s.

The story behind the formation of the original PGA

The early 1900s saw a surge in golf courses across America, and there was a need for a national organization of golf professionals to help promote and grow the sport. This history explores how department store heir Rodman Wanamaker organized a luncheon that led to the formation of the PGA of America.

How the Grammy Awards are made

The Grammy Awards aren’t just trophies—they’re handcrafted works of art. Since 1959, each Grammy has been meticulously made from a custom metal alloy called “grammium.” From its origins to the process behind every award, here’s a look at the craftsmanship behind music’s most prestigious honor.

How microchips are made

Our increasingly electronic world depends on tiny devices called microchips to function. It takes half a year to create one, which is approximately the size of a fingernail. Engineering them is a highly involved process that starts with silicon-rich sand and eventually turns into billions of transistors packed into one small area. Watch this video to understand the complex feat of creating microchips and how they’re relevant to our daily life.

Behind the Ryder Cup, the tournament that features golfers playing for their home countries

Established in 1927, the Ryder Cup is unlike any other tournament. The scoring includes a mix of fourball, foursomes, and singles, with half-points for ties. Explore the rich history of the Ryder Cup in this detailed interactive. Each era of history includes detailed accounts of the match, historic photos, and the final score for each team.

How Faber-Castell makes pencils

One of the world's oldest industrial companies, Faber-Castell produces over 2 billion pencils a year, among many other staple products. In this quick video, watch the company's well-tried process for manufacturing the essential utensil, from mixing the graphite and clay to milling the wood of the pencils.

Turbulence is needed to make airplanes more stable and golf balls fly farther

Vortex generators—small fins placed along airplane wings—create small eddies that prevent airflow separation, maintaining lift and preventing stalls. Golf balls have dimples that create a turbulent boundary layer on their surface, minimizing drag forces.

An exploration of what makes Olympic curling so difficult and strange

The sport is often maligned for its oddity, but this impassioned video argues it's one of the more impressive (and good-natured) sports in the Olympics. Sometimes labeled "chess on ice," curling at the Olympics uses 44-pound, 60-million-year-old granite stones all extracted from the same Scottish island.

One roadside attraction invented modern mini-golf

Garnet Carter and his wife Frieda owned and operated Fairyland, a roadside attraction on Lookout Mountain in Georgia. While other mini-golf courses tried to mimic the regal courses of its parent game, the Carters built obstacles and decorations from items they had around Fairyland, effectively inventing the leisure-minded version of the game.

MLB teams can travel with roughly 12,000 pounds of gear and luggage

Each of the league's 30 teams has travel directors facilitating intricate logistics to move players and luggage to the next city, often after a game and the night before another game day. This video breaks down the wild planning required.

See how artificial Christmas trees are made

Modern artificial Christmas trees are built from bent steel frames and PVC plastic. The plastic is cut into strips and shredded to mimic the needles of an evergreen tree. See the factory process of these mass-produced holiday mainstays.

How is the climate like baseball?

A two-minute video taking a lighthearted look at an unexpected analogy, explaining why some people call carbon dioxide (and the other greenhouse gases) the steroids of the climate system.

Ten everyday NASA inventions (likely) in your home

As a public agency, NASA's goals aren't just in space, but for life on Earth, too. That's why so many everyday objects including memory foam, cordless tools, and golf balls are rooted in research first developed by space-faring engineers and scientists. Peruse this quirky list of some of those everyday objects destined for space that are also probably somewhere inside your home.

Engineer explains VR at five levels of complexity

While its possible to grab a virtual reality headset and hop into an immersive world with little effort, a significant amount of technical and biological science has gone into creating the effect of a 3D world. This video breaks down the technology in five layers of increasing complexity.

What it takes to become a professional jockey

This short documentary follows a young, amateur jockey through early mornings and exhaustive gym sessions, where she rides a simulator made to look like real horses. It's a peek into a highly specialized (and highly unusual) athletic pursuit.

What is gravity made of?

Our world at very small scales is governed by quantum mechanics, in which forces and energy come in discrete packets. At large scales, our world is governed by gravity, which moves the planets and stars and can create waves in spacetime. To merge...

Create anything from the elements in Little Alchemy 2

Various ancient cultures believed the most abundant substances in the world were its basic elements: earth, water, air, and fire. We may know better now, but you can make almost anything from those four things. Little Alchemy 2 is a fun, cartoonish game that allows users to create more complex items from simple substances.

NFL kickers are kicking the ball farther than ever before

A combination of training, technique, and new rules regarding equipment has led to a sharp improvement in kicking since 2020. Certain players are now allowed to keep footballs with them throughout the practice week and play with a ball of their choosing during games.

How the inventor of Mario designs games

Shigeru Miyamoto has created some of the most iconic video games in history, from Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong to The Legend of Zelda. The game producer boils down his creative philosophy to three basic principles: story, simplicity, and...

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

Additive manufacturing consists of seven different process categories

Although 3D printing has become synonymous with the term, objects can be fabricated without filaments of hot plastic or light-sensitive powders. For example, during sheet lamination, ultrasonic waves—high-frequency vibrations—can join metal sheets by creating molecular bonds through friction.

Strength training doesn't require fancy equipment—cans, water bottles, and shopping bags work well

The goal with strength training is to stimulate your muscles by straining them a bit, so using any everyday items at home that you can barely lift easily will help you meet that goal. Over time, users can increase the weight they're lifting and their repetitions to provide a greater workout.

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

Watch the cumbersome, but necessary, precautions healthcare workers must take to care for and protect themselves while caring for Ebola patients.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.