The great range ball rip-off

Nathan Brown, a 27-year-old man of Maryland Heights, Missouri, has admitted stealing 42,000 range balls worth £13,000, but offered no explanation as to why or what has happened to the balls. Brown’s first theft came in November of last year, but he struck again in August and then again in October – and while Brown admitted the theft as soon as police tracked him down (thanks to a tip-off) he has so far refused to say what he’s done with them.

Some 2,000 of the balls have been recovered. The whereabouts of the remainder is a total mystery. It would be difficult for Brown to sell them to another range as the driving range hit by the theft has its own logo on the range balls.

Range owner Carol Boggs told Fox News, “We pay extra to have logos put on a golf ball and we get a different logo every year so that we can know which year these golf balls came from. It almost put us out of business because you need golf balls to operate. We couldn’t imagine that anybody could come in here and pick up that many golf balls without somebody recognising that there’s somebody out there picking golf balls.”