How bad would you want to wrap your putter around someone’s head if a golfer in your group marked their ball with a lighted flickering ball marker? Maybe it’s just me.

Well, this potentially annoying ball marker is found in a patent application that published this week as US Publication No. 20100151972 titled “Ball Marker for Golf,” which describes the invention as:

Provided is a ball marker for golf, including: a round-shaped case having an opening; a disc spring fit to the round-shaped case; a thin film printed circuit board and a flexible printed circuit cable seated on a top surface of the disc spring, the thin film printed circuit board having a light-emitting diode flickering control chip, the flexible printed circuit cable being connected to the thin film printed circuit board and having a plurality of surface mounted device light emission diodes; a transparent rubber layer formed on the thin film printed circuit board and the flexible printed circuit cable; an electric cell received in a receiving portion of the disc spring exposed from a lower portion of the round-shaped case; a button switch and a button cover arranged on the electric cell; and a lower fixing portion fused and fixed with soft resin.

 

Here is the rational for the invention:

[0005] In order to read the green lie, golfers generally mark the position of the ball with a ball marker and check the position of the ball marker from the rear of the hole cup, which is opposite to the ball marker. In this instance, while the golfer can easily find the ball marker if the ball marker is located in an area near to the hole cup (for instance, within a range of 1 meter to 3 meter), the golfer has to pay careful attention to find the ball marker if the ball marker is far away more than 10 meter from the hole cup. In detail, since it is good that a height of his or her sight is near to the green surface to correctly read the green lie, the golfer frequently lies down flat on the ground. According to circumstances, when the golfer cannot see the ball marker satisfactorily due to the curve of the ground or because the ball marker is hidden into the grass of the putting green, the golfer has to stand up. Accordingly, the golfer has to frequently repeat behaviors to sit down and stand up.

[0006] Furthermore, the golfer cannot sometimes satisfactorily grasp the position of the ball marker due to excessively strong sunshine or feels difficulty to find the ball marker in a cloudy weather, at dawn, at night, or under night illumination.

Really?

Dave Dawsey   - Keeping an Eye on Golf Ball Marker Inventions

PS – check out golf glove inventions here