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Golf Ball Test Robot Wears Them Out

How can you tell if your golf ball really gets the most distance? How can you tell how durable your golf balls really are? Get yourself a robot!


(Robot testing golf balls)

After spending five consecutive days teeing up ball after ball on a swing robot this summer, I noticed a few things I think you’ll find interesting. Please indulge me as I share some of the things that converted me to the church of golf ball performance. It will be worth your while, I promise...

Rather than trusting the marketing blurb on the back of the box, MyGolfSpy puts every golf ball to the test with a robot to confirm or refute performance claims.

(Via MyGolfSpy.)

In Frederik Pohl's 1954 short story The Midas Plague, human beings were no longer able to keep up with the consumption requirements of the modern consumer economy. So, consumption robots took up the slack.

In this case, teeing up golf balls over and over again, until they wore them out.


Pohl's Consumption robots

There was the butler-robot, hard at work, his copper face expressionless. Dressed in Morey's own sports knickers and golfing shoes, the robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again, with Morey's own clubs. Until the ball wore ragged and was replaced; and the shafts of the clubs leaned out of true; and the close-stitched seams in the clothing began to stretch and abrade.
(Read more about Frederic Pohl's consumption robots)

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/19/2025)

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Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")

Atlas Robot Makes Uncomfortable Movements
'Not like me. A T-1000, advanced prototype. A mimetic poly-alloy. Liquid metal.' - James Cameron, 1991.

Humanoid Robots Tickle The Ivories
'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...' - Herbert Goldstone, 1953.

Golf Ball Test Robot Wears Them Out
"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...' - Frederik Poh, 1954.

PaXini Supersensitive Robot Fingers
'My fingers are not that sensitive...' - Ray Cummings, 1931.

 

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