The Accidental Inventions We Should All Be Grateful For

Are you the sort of person who throws your belongings out as soon as they start to get a bit worn and buys new ones? Well, that’s a bad idea twice over: it’s not good for the environment, and it also might make you a worse golfer.

I’m referring to an important story in the development of the modern golf ball. As the story goes, back in the day, golfers started to notice that their old balls—the ones they’d had for a long time, the ones that were getting all dented and scuffed up—went farther than the new, perfectly smooth balls. That discovery eventually led to the creation of golf balls covered with dimples, which are the standard for golf balls today.