Golf Ball

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Harry Brown explores the composition, history, kinetic life, and the long deterioration of golf balls, which as it turns out may outlive their hitters by a thousand years, in places far beyond our reach. Golf balls embody our efforts to impose our will on the land, whether the local golf course or the Moon, but their unpredictable spin, bounce, and roll often defy our control. Despite their considerable technical refinements, golf balls reveal the futility of control. They inevitably disappear in plain sight and find their way into hazards. Golf balls play with people.

Harry Brown's short treatise on the golf ball serves up surprising lessons about the human desire to tame and control the landscape through technology.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Acknowledgments

Part One: Out: Thing
1. How I cut a golf ball in half, and found a lot of things inside
2. How the golf ball keeps holy the Lord's day
3. How an empire made the golf ball, and the golf ball made an empire
4. How the golf ball blew up America and made golf more fun
5. How the golf ball went ballistic
6. How the golf ball reached dé tente
7. How the court decided custody of the golf ball
8. How the golf ball became the #1 ball in golf
9. How the golf ball got so cool
Part Two: In: Phenomenon
10. How the golf ball vanishes before your eyes
11. How the golf ball makes us feel fulfilled, for a millisecond
12. How to control the unruly golf ball
13. How to hit the golf ball by not hitting it
14. How the golf ball looks into the abyss, and the abyss looks back
15. How the golf ball won the Golden Fleece
16. How the golf ball went to the moon
17. How the golf ball makes friends with animals
18. How the golf ball prepares for doomsday

Notes
Index