If you've played enough golf in your life, you've probably seen it all. And that includes the golfer with the 5-gallon bucket. It's not filled with tools, paint, or topsoil. And it's not orange, but it could be from Home Depot.
You've seen the five-gallon golfer before—always practicing his short game. He's always alone working diligently in the greenside practice area. And he's never short of golf balls. But how many are in the bucket? Let's do some quick math and find out.
Spherical Math
A 5-gallon bucket has a volume of 20 quarts. A quart is equal to 4 cups, so a 5-gallon bucket has a volume of 80 cups. A golf ball has a diameter of 1.68 inches. Using the formula for the volume of a sphere, we can calculate that each golf ball has a volume of...
You didn't actually think that our math is advanced enough to figure this one out, did you? We'd have far better luck counting the golf balls as we dropped them one by one into the bucket.
Driving Range Math
Let's first understand that not all 5-gallon buckets are created equal. The shape and size can be different. Different variables will allow for different numbers.
But because we're driving range fanatics and we know how many golf balls in a large bucket, we can do some driving range math. This will allow us to come up a very good guestimate of the number of golf balls that fit in a five gallon bucket.
A large bucket of range balls using those standard green baskets that are so common at driving ranges can hold 100-110 golf balls when filled to the top. By our estimates if we empty 3.5 to 4 large buckets of range balls in the 5-gallon bucket we should have between 350 - 440 golf balls.
Now you may be wondering what's the cost of a 5-gallon bucket? For that one we need to do some more driving range math. Once we've figured out how much do range balls cost, we can take the cost of a large bucket, $16 - $20 and multiply that by 3. This would give us a ballpark cost of $45 or more.
But we have one more problem. Who wants to lug around 400 golf balls? That certainly wouldn't be light. And we've done enough math for the day so no need to figure out how much the bucket of golf balls weighs.
Let's just say that you don't need to fill the bucket up. The 5-gallon golfer doesn't. Most of the time he has way less than 100 golf balls in the bucket. But it's convenient for him - he can throw an extra wedge or two in there, his golf glove, even a bottle of water.
So there you have it—if you ever wondered how many golf balls fit in a 5-gallon bucket, now you have a pretty good idea! The next time you see the five-gallon golfer practicing his short game, take a moment to appreciate just how many golf balls could fit in the bucket and be glad you're not lugging it around.
If you're dying to get to the range but you just don't have the time then bring the range home. We've got the perfect solution below - the best chipping and golf practice nets.
And what about practice golf balls for home too. See below now!
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