Virtual Golf Ball Rack

Overview

I keep a physical golf ball rack — a 9-column mahogany case with black felt shelves, one logo ball for (almost) every course I’ve played. This is the digital twin: same grid, same empty drilled slots at the bottom, and every stamp transcribed from a photo of the real thing.

Open the rack →

How it works

• Each ball sits at its real row/col in the case. Empty positions render as drilled holes, the way the physical rack looks when a shelf isn’t full.
• Click a ball to pull up the course, city, and any notes — then fly the map to that pin.
• Each face is a dimpled golf ball with a simplified original club mark (Block O, Muirfield MV, Pinehurst Putter Boy, RTJ Trail, Boyne, and wordmarks/crests for the rest). If a logo file is missing, the old text stamp still shows.
• Posted rounds — when they exist — show on the detail card as a chip (Posted 84 · 7/12/2025 · White tees). Multiple rounds keep the latest plus a count.
• Click a map pin or a course chip and the matching ball pulses in the case, so you can find it on the wall.
• Amber dots mark logos that were hard to read in the photo. Those are best guesses, not gospel.

If you recognize a mystery ball, tell me. A few stamps are still unidentified, including a small purple logo on row 1.

The collection

Most of the case is Ohio muni and club golf, then trips: Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand, the Robert Trent Jones Trail in Alabama, Boyne country in northern Michigan, Pinehurst, and a couple of Arizona rounds. Specials — a photo ball, an autograph, a novelty “Backbreaker” stamp — sit in with the rest instead of getting their own shelf.

The live rack is the source of truth. Edit rack-data.js (or send a correction) and the map, stats, and course list update with it.

Scores and GHIN

There is no public consumer API for GHIN posted scores. Partner APIs are licensed to clubs and vendors. The USGA Handicap ID lookup can email a golfer their GHIN number; it does not return scorecards, and ghin.com lookup requires a login. This site does not scrape GHIN.

Rounds on the rack live in assets/js/rack-scores.js — a local scorebook matched to balls by course name. Nothing in this repo or the related public golf repos (Open-Golf-Index-Network, golf-swing-weight-calculator, Golf) publishes a GHIN number or a scoring record, so the scorebook ships empty until real posted rounds are pasted in. Mystery, photo, autograph, and novelty balls keep distinctive marks rather than fake club logos.