Chapter 1: The Start of a Cleanup Initiative

Every year, approximately 300 million golf balls are lost globally.

Photo: Matthew Savoca

Alex Weber is not your typical teenager. Since the spring of 2016, she has gathered around 50,000 golf balls from the waters of Carmel Bay in California. This effort is part of her mission to address a problem that likely originates from years of golfing at local courses. Growing up in a family of scuba divers, Weber, who studies at Cabrillo Community College, identifies as an "ocean kid." “It’s a massive natural high for me,” she shares with Medium. To keep her cherished beaches clean, she regularly organizes clean-up activities to remove microplastics that wash ashore.

In May 2016, during a free diving excursion with her father, Weber was shocked to discover the sea floor littered with golf balls. “The entire area was blanketed with them. I felt an overwhelming wave of nausea,” she remembers.

Photo: Alex Weber

On their next diving trip, they collected about 2,000 golf balls. “As a human,” she reflects, “I felt it was my duty to rectify the mess we’ve created.” This pattern continued: each diving trip yielded anywhere from 500 to 5,000 golf balls. Between May 2016 and June 2018, the duo collected a staggering 50,000 balls, weighing approximately 2.5 tons—equivalent to the weight of a pickup truck. They have co-authored a scientific paper recently published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin, detailing the severity of the issue.

“The sheer volume of golf balls we extracted from the ocean and the rate at which they refilled the sea floor was mind-boggling,” Weber notes. “That realization fueled my commitment—these balls just kept appearing.”

Now dubbed the "Plastic Pickup Team," Weber and her father dive whenever weather permits, typically for about six months each year. They sometimes spend up to ten hours collecting golf balls. In late 2016, Weber reached out to Matthew Savoca, a marine ecologist at Stanford University, to assist in quantifying the local golf ball waste.

Upon learning about the scale of Weber’s efforts, Savoca was taken aback. “Everyone I've spoken to is astonished that this is even a problem,” he says. Savoca is a co-author of the Marine Pollution Bulletin study.

The solid core of golf balls contains zinc oxide and zinc acrylate, which enhance their durability and flexibility. However, both compounds are deemed toxic in aquatic environments and can trigger stress responses in fish, algae, and crustaceans.

While it's uncertain how many golf balls are lost globally each year, estimates suggest that the annual total could reach as high as 300 million in the United States alone. Despite this staggering figure, golf balls represent only a fraction of the eight million tons of plastic that humans dump into the oceans annually. Some projections indicate that by 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the sea.

However, at a local level—like in Carmel Bay—golf balls could be one of the most significant contributors to marine plastic, according to Savoca. The exact chemicals released by golf balls and their potential impact on the surrounding ecosystem remain unclear, but Weber is hopeful this may be explored in future research.

Photo: Alex Weber

Microplastics have been detected in nearly every part of the oceans and among various marine creatures, including seabirds, whales, and worms, states Miriam Goldstein, director of ocean policy at the Center for American Progress. Although it's likely that plastic is harmful to fish that ingest it, the implications for human health remain ambiguous. “There’s a lot we don’t know, but plastic is pervasive in the ocean and it shouldn't be there,” she emphasizes.

According to Robert Weiss, an emeritus professor of polymer engineering at the University of Connecticut, the risk of harmful chemicals leaching from golf balls is minimal, primarily because they degrade slowly underwater. “The pollution from golf balls is likely insignificant compared to other sources of plastics and metals in our oceans,” he explains.

Chapter 2: Solutions and Future Directions

This Student Is Diving For Golf Balls In The Ocean (HBO) - YouTube

In response to the growing issue of golf ball pollution, there is a push to develop policies aimed at mitigating, if not completely resolving, the problem. “The key to addressing ocean pollution is not just removing plastics but preventing them from entering the water in the first place,” Weber asserts.

Both the Pebble Beach Company, which manages several golf courses in the Carmel Bay area, and the study's researchers are collaborating with the Monterey National Marine Sanctuary, which is tasked with preserving the local marine ecosystem, to identify potential solutions.

“The Pebble Beach Company has implemented a proactive remediation program,” a spokesperson explains. “This begins with informing golfers—both directly and through our caddies—that hitting balls into the water is prohibited. We engage research divers to collect golf balls and independently identify and advise on key sites for our ongoing collection efforts. Additionally, our staff and volunteers regularly retrieve golf balls from the shoreline and beaches.”

Training golfers to improve their accuracy could reduce the number of balls ending up in the ocean, suggests Sabine Pahl, a social psychologist at the University of Plymouth in the U.K. who specializes in marine conservation and energy efficiency. Technical solutions, such as installing nets to catch stray balls, may also be viable options.

Evidence indicates that spending time in natural settings contributes to better health and happiness, Pahl notes. “But how do we reconcile that with the potential harm to the environment?”

Weber proposes that caddies track the number of balls lost by players daily and log this in a digital database. This data could help golf courses monitor the number of balls lost to the oceans, emphasizing the responsibility of golfers or courses to remove a portion of that total.

Photo: Robert Beck

Another innovative approach could involve the use of biodegradable golf balls. For example, Albus Golf’s ecobioball decomposes within 48 hours of hitting water, revealing an inner core designed as fish food. However, a significant challenge remains: these biodegradable alternatives do not currently meet the United States Golf Association’s standards for golf balls.

“We wouldn't face this issue if golf balls were buoyant,” Weber observes. Yet, modifying golf balls to float might make them more challenging to retrieve, Savoca warns.

The future of golf ball pollution in Carmel Bay and beyond remains uncertain. As Weber prepares to start college later this year, she is undecided about continuing her research on golf ball pollution. Nonetheless, she hopes her work will ignite interest within the scientific community.

“This is a fascinating subject, and I truly enjoy it,” she expresses. “And the impact is visible because it’s a problem we’ve created.”

Plastic Oceans | What is the impact of pollution in the sea? - YouTube