Praise the Lord and Pass the Golf Ball

If Bob Townley gets his giant golf ball for Pier 25, Tribeca might consider it a gift from heaven, based on the stories they tell in Texas about the orb.

For 14 years, the ball and tee overlooked Homer’s Brazos Golf, a driving range on Interstate 35 in Waco, and was a local landmark. The facility’s former owner, Homer Owen, discovered the ball when it was up for sale at a recreation park near Austin.

"I’m a Christian and I pray often, and once in a while I feel like I hear the voice of God," Owen said in a telephone interview from Texas. "On my way by that place, the Lord said ‘You can have that ball if you want it.’ I thought it would be a neat thing to have at my driving range."

God tested Owen’s patience at first. "[The owner] was asking $5,000, and I offered him $400. He had other people saying they wanted to buy it, but apparently they didn’t come up with the money. One day he called me and said, ‘I got to get it off the property, come and get it.’" But the ball initially "caused a bit of a fuss" around Waco, Owen said. No sooner had he installed it at his driving range than the town fathers told him to take it down. Signs taller than 20 feet aren’t allowed in the area, they said. Owen appealed to the City Council, which deferred to City Planning. Meanwhile, his golf ball became a cause célèbre. Local media jumped on the story, and citizens rallied to his support. One radio station did its daily call-in program from his driving range, asking listeners: "What do you think Homer ought to do with his ball?" Waco’s Board of Estimate eventually decided that the golf ball was not a sign, after all, but an "accessory structure," and could stay put. Over time, the ball suffered damage from the elements, and in 2000, Owen dismantled it. When Will Pikett, who had worked for Owen, bought the driving range a year and a half ago, he thought he’d repair the giant ball, but then had second thoughts.