{"id":626986,"date":"2026-08-08T11:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/626986\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T11:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:40:14","slug":"in-1971-apollo-14-astronaut-alan-shepard-hit-two-golf-balls-on-the-moon-with-an-improvised-six-iron-both-remain-there-55-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/626986\/","title":{"rendered":"In 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard hit two golf balls on the Moon with an improvised six-iron: Both remain there 55 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"InAlan Shepard\/AI representation of the Golf Club | Wikimedia Commons\/ChatGPT Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard paused near the end of the mission’s second moonwalk on February 6, 1971 and attached a Wilson six-iron club head to the handle of a lunar sample collection tool. It was hidden inside his spacesuit until that moment, and the improvised club had been approved by NASA but kept secret from television viewers. Shepard dropped a golf ball onto the Moon’s surface and swung one-handed because his bulky spacesuit made a normal golf swing impossible. The first shot barely traveled after landing in a nearby crater, but the second flew much farther. Shepard looked at the camera and joked that it had gone “miles and miles and miles.” The two golf balls never came back. They remain where they landed in the Fra Mauro Highlands, which made them among the many human-made objects still resting on the Moon. NASA’s history of Apollo 14 describes<\/a> the golf shot as one of the mission’s final activities before the astronauts returned to the lunar module.\"elephant<\/p>\n

Alan Shepard\/AI representation of the Golf Club | Wikimedia Commons\/ChatGPT<\/p>\n

The club was built from mission equipmentShepard worked with golf professional Jack Harden of the River Oaks Country Club in Houston before the mission, who helped him modify a standard Wilson six-iron. The club head was cut down and attached to the handle of the contingency sample return tool that was already carried on Apollo 14. With this modification, Shepard could pack the club head inside one of his spacesuit pockets until the end of the mission. The idea added only a little weight to the spacecraft’s payload and did not interfere with any scientific objectives. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum notes<\/a> that Shepard later donated the original club head to the U.S. Golf Association Museum, where it remains on display.The famous “miles and miles” claim did not survive closer inspectionNo one knew exactly how far Shepard’s golf balls had traveled for decades. Television images from Apollo 14 were grainy, and the balls quickly disappeared against the Moon’s gray surface. Shepard himself admitted he was exaggerating when he joked about hitting the second ball “miles and miles and miles.” Modern image analysis has provided a much clearer answer. Imaging specialist Andy Saunders located both golf balls and compared their positions with photographs from lunar orbit using newly restored Apollo film and high-resolution scans. It was found that the first ball traveled about 24 yards (22 meters), and the second traveled about 40 yards (37 meters). Those distances were much shorter than Shepard’s famous remark but still impressive considering he swung with one hand while wearing a pressurized spacesuit that severely limited his movement. According to the American Physical Society<\/a>, under ideal conditions, a golf ball that has been struck on the Moon could travel several miles because of the weaker gravity and the absence of air resistance. Shepard simply did not have the freedom of movement needed to produce that kind of shot.\"elephant<\/p>\n

Shepard in front of the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle during training for Apollo 14 | Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

The golf balls are still part of the Apollo landing siteShepard’s two golf balls remain near the lunar module’s landing site alongside scientific instruments, tools and other equipment left behind to reduce the spacecraft’s weight before liftoff. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has photographed the Apollo landing sites in remarkable detail, which reveal the descent stage of the lunar module, astronauts’ walking paths and many larger objects. The golf balls themselves are too small to be identified directly in orbital images, but their approximate locations are known from mission photography and later image analysis. The two balls remain exactly where they came to rest more than five decades after Shepard’s brief golf demonstration, and preserve one of the Apollo program’s light-hearted moments alongside its scientific achievements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alan Shepard\/AI representation of the Golf Club | Wikimedia Commons\/ChatGPT Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard paused near the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[264739,220790,18,264740,19,17,264742,264741,133,451],"class_list":["post-626986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-alan-shepard","tag-apollo-14","tag-eire","tag-golf-balls-on-the-moon","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-moonwalk-1971","tag-nasa-apollo-program","tag-science","tag-space"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117059704780930981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}