Used golf balls get another shot to fly with young players

After becoming part of Warren Leistikow’s huge collection, several hundred golf balls may once again fly on area courses.

As 2021 Junior Golf programs, under the direction of Matt Haase, finished their summer seasons at Medford’s Black River and Tee-Hi golf courses, the young golfers each received a bag of 24 used balls from Leistikow’s collection, which he said at one time approached 30,000.

“After I retired I took up golf and played a lot,” Leistikow said last Thursday. “I’d go out at 5:30 in the morning and I’d go out and hunt for golf balls and I’d do it while I was playing golf. I did it for probably about 15 years.

“I’ve been donating them to people around the area for a few years now. You just don’t need that many golf balls.”

The process of getting the balls to the youth golfers, ages 8-18, was coordinated by Caleb Heckel, who is entering his senior year at Medford Area Senior High. He is a member of Medford’s golf team and helps out with the junior program.

Heckel and his grandfather, Bob Gibbons, bagged the balls for the kids during the July 24 weekend. The total donation came to 1,656 balls or enough for 69 youth golfers to receive one bag apiece.

“It didn’t take real long, but it was still a lot of golf balls,” Heckel said Tuesday as the Tee-Hi juniors picked up their bags of balls and signed a thank you card at the end of their final outing.

“I’d wash them and dry them,” said Leistikow, who guessed his collection now sits at somewhere between 18,000 and 20,000 balls after his recent donations. “A lot of the time I’d sort them by brand, putting different brands into different barrels. It kept me busy.

“I knew one of the young golfers who was helping out in the program,” he added. “I was talking to his grandfather and told him he could have some of the golf balls and give them to the youth program.”

While health issues are keeping Leistikow off the course this season, he said he’s definitely happy to see the balls go to good use.