Ok, so moved into a condo after being in house for a long time. At the house I had two baskets in the back yard. I have been afraid to practice putting behind the condo, mainly worried the other residents might not appreciate the noise of making putts. I also putt pretty hard.

So I went to Home Depot and bought a piece of 1" pipe insulation, wrapped that around the center pole (m-14 basket), making sure it extended below the lower ring of chains, and voila instant stealth putting practice.

Anyone else try anything like this for silent putting?

hey great idea! easy stealth is a worthy goal indeed!

I just go "no chains required" on every put...... :p

I knew someone who did this on a portable Disccatcher, and it worked great. When we started building our course he loaned it to us, and out of respect we didn't remove the foam. Every once in a while a good putt would hit the foam and spring off the center pole and out. The silence of the basket was offset by the screams of anguish. (We eventually removed the foam, with his blessing).

I seem to recall that Stonehenge, a private course in Nashville, had done this to a bunch of outdoor baskets. Makes for an odd muffled sound when you hit a hard or long putt.

Great stuff (the foam for cracks around windows and doors) down the pipe quiets the ring quite a bit. Not quite silent, but a lot quieter.

A friend modified my m-14 to a "m-21" (guess you'd call it) and the seven chains that were added are a thicker gauge than even a regulation chain (I think the original 14 are smaller then reg). It seems to be more quiet than a regular basket.

Putt with supersoft Woodchucks - they make very little noise when they hit the chains.

My basket has an aluminum pole that has a loud "ringing" when putting. (on those rare occasions that I actually hit it!) I wrapped it with aluminum gutter repair tape. It's a thin, rubberized material that sticks great. It's bonded inside the aluminum tape. It's about 6" wide so fits perfectly, looks good and muffled the ringing. There is still a nice sound when hitting it without being too loud.

I painted some of the baskets on the BRATS course - just with a brush, used standard barn red, trying to make them less spot-able from the dirt road I live on - and discovered that (a) the paint on the chains stopped spit-outs and (b) muted the sound of chains. Doesn't seem to affect the play, otherwise.

Just miss more putts and you won't make much noise

Just miss more putts and you won't make much noise



i resemble that remark...

used standard barn red, trying to make them less spot-able from the dirt road I live on



Terry:

Where do you live? Hell?

I have a buddy that had an annoying downstairs neighbor on 3rd shift, so everytime he wanted to putt, this guy would give him stuff about it.
he did the pipe insulation...dreamy.

he also attempted to wrap the chains in celephane. bad idea for practicing for a tourney. nothing catches like celophane...nothing. not even a real basket. horrible tounament for him.
needless to say, annoying neighbor moved, putting commenced.

I like to share that story...he's really embarrased by it and doesn't get on the discussions board!! :D

I painted the pole and chains of my basket with this glow-in-the-dark paint (from wal-mart) that has a rubbery feel to it when it's dry. It does quiet it down and you can see it better in the back yard at night. During the day it looks like a regular basket. It was actually hard to tell where I painted when I was painting it, so I took it in the garage and charged the can with a UV light and painted it with the garage light off. Very trippy, I do alot of projects while drinking in the garage, this was one of those times.