MASON CITY ñ Josh Becker harvested a bumper crop of golf balls Tuesday while out checking on the soybean field he planted recently at North Iowa Area Community College. Above: Josh Becker holds one of the 62 golf balls found in a bean field at North Iowa Area Community College.
By Joe Buttweiler.|
MASON CITY ñ Josh Becker harvested a bumper crop of golf balls Tuesday while out checking on the soybean field he planted recently at North Iowa Area Community College.
And it wasn’t the first time. He brought in a whole bucketful when checking a cornfield recently, raising the question of who’s driving all these balls into the fields, and from where.
The ones in the bean field … Well, it’s not too far from the dorms. Students far and wide ñ and many adults, too — have been known to tee up a golf ball ñ sometimes even in the dead of night — and send it hooking, slicing or maybe even straight out into the great unknown.
But the ones in a cornfield to the west of College Drive, which is the main entryway to NIACC off of Highway 122, had Becker stumped.
Same with Dan Erickson, a member of the grounds crew, who was mowing grass in the area Tuesday. He said he commonly finds golf balls in the grass, and recently found a bunch in an area near the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center.
“I don’t know,” Becker said. “Maybe they were teeing off from the soccer field,” which is to the east of College Drive.
Hmmm … Maybe it’s folks at the Pappajohn Center. You know what they say about a lot of business getting done on the golf course. A class on golf tips wouldn’t be too far-fetched … OK, maybe not.
Becker, a sophomore from Charles City who is in the Agricultural Marketing and Finance program at NIACC, said he and classmate Zach Wangen of Clarks Grove, Minn., picked up 62 balls from the bean field Tuesday morning.
“I’m sure there are a whole lot more, but I just didn’t see them,” Becker said.
He said he noticed several golf balls in the field two weeks ago when he was planting the beans. So he made a point of looking for them when he and Wangen were checking to see how the new crop was coming up. He said he had no idea he’d find so many.
“We both golf so it works out all right,” Becker said.
He put them in a bucket and washed them, then laid them out on a towel to sort and count. Thirteen Titleists, 12 Top Flites, nine Pinnacles, six Wilsons. There was even one with a Dole emblem on it.
Becker’s plan for later in the afternoon?
Go golfing.
Student Josh Becker points to a cornfield east of the farm lab at North Iowa Area Community College where scores of golf balls have been found. Who drives them there and from where? He’s not sure. But he thought he’d go golfing this week after finding a bunch in a different field. 
Titleist and Top Flite appear to be the preferred brand of whomever’s been driving golf balls into crop fields at North Iowa Area Community College.
