Golf ball tracking device the answer to hackers' prayers

That whine coming from the deep rough on your golf course may not be a Welsh journalist who missed his flight home from the Lions tour, but a golf ball reaching out to make contact with its owner.

Over the years, weekend hackers have dreamed of some way of finding those sliced drives, which these days can cost from $5 to $12 for a new ball.

Potential solutions have ranged from metallic balls and metal detectors, scented balls and well-trained dogs and even Geiger counters for radioactive missiles.

The latest gadget comes from California, where a software wizard has devised a handheld device, called RadarGolf, which scans for balls embedded with radio frequency identification chips.

The beeps from the device speed up as it gets nearer the lost ball and develop a high-pitched whine as its resting place is reached.

For the golfer who has everything, the price is US$249, including a dozen microchipped balls - presumably because as a hacker you're going to damage the ball even if you don't lose it any more.

The investment is not going to do your handicap any good.

As North Shore rules expert Ian Grant points out, the microchipped ball could well be legal, but the hand-held device would be barred under rule 14 (3), which outlaws artificial devices and equipment that assists your play or could act as a measuring device.

That is the same rule that bars the rangefinders used by course architects and rating officials.

Caddies can use them to compile their distance charts before a tournament, but they must rely on their notes when play begins.

Some big resort courses install GPS systems on their golf carts to monitor the pace of play, but these would contravene the rules if they could be used by the players to work out their yardage.

The professionals we see on television rarely lose a ball because the big galleries can usually spot an errant shot well within the five minutes allowed.

But there are occasions when lost balls have decided championships.

In 1993 at the New Plymouth Golf Club, Australian Loraine Lambert was going for a hat-trick of wins in the national amateur championship.

She was level with Wellingtonian Lynnette Brooky in the final when her tee shot on a par three disappeared and was never found, despite a five-minute search by the big gallery.

She lost the hole and never recovered.

Apparently the time limits were not in force in 1912 at the Shawnee Invitational for Ladies at Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pennsylvania, where a woman player took 166 strokes for the 125m 16th hole.

Her tee shot with the feather-stuffed ball of the day went into the river and floated. She launched a boat and, with her husband rowing, she beached the ball a couple of kilometres downstream and played her way back to the green.

Perhaps the final word on "unlosable" golf balls should go to the guy who showed off one to his mates in the clubhouse bar. Asked where he got it, he said he found it in the rough.