How Did Daisy Golf Balls End Up on the Moon?

On this episode of Our American Stories, although never publicly stated (the brands of anything brought to the moon were kept quiet), there is a good chance that the golf balls hit on the moon were "Daisy" golf balls. Joe Murfin tells the story of an estate sale, a photo, and a story that you won't forget.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story that started in Rogers, Arkansas, a truly beautiful town
and the home of Daisy Outdoor Products and the Daisy
Airgun Museum, which is truly out of this world. Here
to tell the story is Joe Murphin, the chairman of

(00:30):
the board of that aforementioned museum. Take it away, Joe.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
When I learned this story. In my career with Daisy,
I used to really love to talk to older people
who were retired from the company. I felt I could
learn so much from them, and so much of what
we as a company thought we were doing was new
in a way had been done before, or we could
benefit from their experience. And I would tap into that

(01:01):
knowledge base a lot. And I started calling people in saying,
do you know about these astronauts with Apollo fourteen. Yeah,
Alan Shepherd came here to Rogers. You knew that. Oh yeah,
I had lunch with Russa. I said, you know there's
two golf balls on the moon. Yeah, I knew that.

(01:23):
I said, why have you never told me this? Because
I didn't think it was important. In June of twenty fifteen,
while I was still serving as vice president the public
relations for Daisy. I was contacted by a gentleman within

(01:45):
a state company in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and he told
me about one hundred and three year old woman who
had passed away and her state was going to be liquidated.
There was going to be a sale, and it was
one of these estate sales where everything's full price today,
but if you come back to marrow, it's twenty percent
off and by Friday it'll be half price. And so

(02:07):
I was familiar with those. I like that kind of sales.
I like all things and antiques. And he started talking
to me about items that he'd found in this woman's
attic that were Daisy related and bore the name of
Jack Powers. And I knew Jack Powers to have been
a vice president of public relations for Daisy for a

(02:32):
long time. He joined Daisy in the sixties and he
worked there until he actually passed away. And we kind
of he and I, this gentleman with the estate sale,
and I made the connection that probably this woman was
a relative of Jack Powers, and that Jack had at
some point in time decided he'd leave some things with

(02:53):
her to store as he moved on in his career.
But this gentleman wanted us to buy things from him,
and I immediately told him we're a nonprofit that we
don't purchase things, will accept your donation. But the more
he talked, and eventually the more photos that he emailed
to me, the more interested I was in acquiring some things.

(03:13):
One of the things he had was a very early
instinct shooting kit that was made for a promoter of
instinct shooting by the name of Lucky McDaniel, and it
was made by Daisy, but it was barely identified as
you know, it's the Lucky McDaniel's shooting kit, and then
on the back somewhere very small Daisy manufacturing Rogers, Arkansas.

(03:35):
It wasn't a Daisy branded item. I'd heard about it,
I knew what it was worth, and so the kind
of establish a relation with him. Immediately, I said, I
liked that Lucky McDaniel's shooting kit. We'd like to acquire that.
The book value is this, and that's what I'll pay
you for, even though it's got a water stain on

(03:56):
the front. And I just kind of set the tone
that I'm willing to do some thing for you if
you're willing to work with me on some of the
other things. There were a lot of photographs, there were
a lot of books. There were a lot of magazine
covers with famous people's pictures on them that were autographed
to Jack Powers this Daisy public Relations VP. There were

(04:18):
even some Crossman air rifles. Crossman's a major competitor of Daisy.
I knew somebody at Crossman, and I said, I'll tell
you what. I'll even help you if you'll help me
with some of these other items and be fair with me.
There was a kind of like a salesman's display case,
a wooden case, red velvet line with a half dozen

(04:38):
beautiful Crossman guns in it. And I said, I've got
a buddy at Crossman. He, like me, is interested in history.
Let me contact him. I'll have you a phone call
by this afternoon of somebody that can appraise those for
you and or would like to buy them for Crossmen.
And so we began to work together on this. But

(05:00):
some of the things that really caught my eye were
more unusual things, and they caused me to go to
the president of Daisy and say, you and I need
to be pickers this week, and we need to go
down and see this sale and see these items because
I really don't know what I'm getting into, but they

(05:21):
belonged to Jack Powers, and they're from the sixties, et cetera.
And one of the most intriguing things was a photo
of the entire Apollo fourteen crew. It had all three
astronauts signature, which I've talked to people who say that
a lot of times they'd take these crew photos out,
but only one astronaut would make an appearance somewhere, so

(05:44):
Alan Shepard might sign it, or Edgar Mitchell or Stuart Russa.
But very unusual for all three of them to be
there and all three of them to sign these photos
like this, but they did. This one Apollo fourteen was
signed by all three and then down at the bottom
on the matt around the matt area around the photograph,
it said to Jack Powers, our most sincere thanks for

(06:10):
the daisy golf balls by Victor. They're out of this world.
So I talked to this gentleman at the estate sale
company and we arrange some general pricing on some of
these items, and I said, but two things. I need

(06:32):
to acquire them before the sale starts. I need to
come down there Monday morning, and I want to buy
them at you just told me what you were going
to price these items at. I want to pretend it's
the following Friday when everything's half price. So that was
my challenge to him, and as most negotiations go, we
met in the middle somewhere on a pre established handshake

(06:54):
over the phone price on photos of Apollo missions. With
this wonderful state went on him. That really intrigued me.
The second thing I asked him is who you're dealing with?
And he told me the name of the family member,
and I said, I need a phone number for them,
and I need to speak with them, and then tomorrow
I will come down and I will buy this, this, this,

(07:15):
and this, But nothing happens unless I talk to Jack
Power's family member. So he gives me the contact information.
Of course, he said, you're not trying to go around me,
are you? And I said, now, I'm dealing with you.
That's fine, but I just want to speak to him.
So I spoke to Jack's son. I letter later would

(07:39):
meet with him and have lunch with him, but I
asked that he immediately after he told me this story,
I asked that he immediately write me an email and
send it to me because I actually feared what Igin
never comes. You were supposed to meet, He's supposed to
tell me this story. I'm supposed to get to interviewing,
but I need this story in writing. So we did that.

(08:00):
But you know, my first question is, so why are
their daisy golf balls at all? Why do they exist?
And how do they get on the moon.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
And we're listening to a story within a story within
a story. And by the way, what are daisy golf balls?
We're going to find out in a bit. But by
the way, anyone who has ever done garage saling, or
better still, estate closings and estate sales, oh my goodness,
this is the joy of a lifetime. When I enjoyed
with my mom for decades, well into my thirties, on

(08:36):
Saturdays in Bergen County, New Jersey, we would get out
the Bergen Record Circle the estate sales and go on Saturday,
never on Thursday, never on Friday, always the last day.
And that's when you could make deals and find treasures.
The story of the daisy golf balls on the moon,
and so much more. For all of you are collectors

(08:58):
of memorabilia, sport artifacts, or anything else. The rest of
the stories for you we find out the answer to
the question what are daisy golf balls for? When we
return here on our American Stories, and we continue with

(09:40):
our American stories and the story of daisy golf balls
on the Moon. When we last left off, Joe Murfin
of the Daisy Aragon Museum in Rogers, Arkansas, was telling
us about learning of an estate cell unlike any other.
The cellar had tons of unique daisy products, including a
photo signed by the ashtra of Apollo fourteen with a

(10:02):
thank you note written on the bottom made out to
Jack Powers, a former Daisy pr executive. Intrigued, Joe managed
to get in contact with Jack Bower's son to figure
out the story behind the photo. Let's return to Joe.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
So, why are their daisy golf balls at all? Why
did they exist? And how did they get on the moon?
And he began to tell me a most interesting story.
His dad, right out of college's first job, was a
executive director of the American Sport Fishing Institute in Washington,

(10:42):
d C. So, a young man just out of school
takes his first job one Stone Press. His boss moves
somewhere in Virginia near Washington, d C. He's renting a
townhouse with he and his wife, and there were six
identical townhouse is side by side, and he's trying to

(11:03):
impress his boss in the new job, and he works
late at night, so he comes home after dark. He
throws open the door and says, honey, I'm home, and
a gruff voice says, I'm not your honey, and I
think you're in the wrong townhouse. Luckily, no one was injured,
and as a matter of fact, both of them laughed

(11:25):
about it. Both of them said, well, let's get our
wives and put on a pot of coffee and let's
get to know each other. We're next door neighbors. It
was a humorous incident, but that chance meeting became a
lifelong friendship for these two couples as their futures unfolded.

(11:47):
This gentleman's name was Al Chopp. He was the head
of Project Blue Book for the Air Force. His job
was to investigate UFO and alien sightings and al on
to become the VP of Public Relations for NASA, and
his voice could be heard in the control booth mission

(12:09):
control for all of the Apollo missions. It was Al
Chops's voice that you heard, so that was his career path.
Jack Powers left the Sportfishing Institute, went to Crossman Air Rifles,
which explains why a Daisy executive in a relative's home
an hour away would have a collection of Crossman guns.

(12:31):
And then from there he left Crossman and came the Daisy.
He did a tremendous job at Daisy and from people
I've talked to that knew him, he was just the
ultimate pr guy. He had a rolodex with names of
famous people in it, with their direct home phone numbers
of politicians and Hollywood actors and actresses. He just knew everybody,

(12:57):
and he was constantly ripping articles out of news paper
and magazines writing a note firing it off to these
famous people letting them know that he'd seen what they'd done.
And there were at those times during the sixties and seventies,
there were famous people appearing in Daisy ads, and there

(13:17):
was a little bit of a Hollywood connection where Daisy
developed the guns and holsters because there were a lot
of Western movies being made and things like that. So
Jack Powers was very well connected and he would go
down and visit al Chop and his wife in Florida

(13:37):
to watch launchings of space vehicles and rockets, and then
he'd be introduced to the crews, into the astronauts, and
he would ask them to come to Daisy. He would
ask him to come up and meet our people and
walk through our factory. And all these astronauts knew about
Daisy or it had an air rifle, and they were

(13:58):
a kid, and so they did this. That's how the
photo ended up in Rogers, Arkansas. That's how the photo
was signed. But still, you know, why are their golf
balls on the moon? Well, Daisy was owned during that
time by a company called Victor Comptrometer. And Victor Comptrometer

(14:22):
made adding machines, and when the handheld calculators started flooding
the market in the United States, and they were not
inexpensive at that time, but they were plentiful and they
worked a lot better than a mechanical adding machine did
this adding machine company decided that they need to diversify
their holdings, so they built a recreational products group. They

(14:46):
purchased the company's Daisy head and lures and fishing equipment,
Ertle Toys, Valley Manufacturing, which made exercise equipment, Nissan Gymnastics,
which made gymnastics equipment, Bear archery, very famous archery, old
archery company, Burke Golf Equipment, who did business as a

(15:06):
DBA of PGA Golf, and the Worthington Ball Company, which
made golf balls. So immediately Victor asked the Worthington Ball
Company to stamp a bunch of golf balls with the
Victor name. Don't know the exact number of these. I

(15:27):
like to think it was very few, but some of them.
Then they would stamp the other side with Bear, so
it says Victor Bear Archery, Victor Eardle, you know, Victor Burke,
you know, whatever the other company's name was. And so
there were golf balls stamped with Victor and Daisy. And
these golf balls weren't sold in any store. They were

(15:48):
just given out. The president of each of these companies,
or the executives at each of these companies would take
them out play in the Chamber City tournament. You know,
here's a sleeve of my golf balls. Why don't you
trade lunch play these, you know. So in nineteen sixty one,
Alan Shepherd became the second person and the first American

(16:10):
to travel in the space. Ten years later, in seventy one,
he commanded the Apollo fourteen mission and became the fifth
person and the oldest person to walk on the Moon.
And the crew of the Apollo included Shepherd, Edgar Mitchell,
and Stuart Russa. So, knowing that Shepherd was an avid golfer,

(16:32):
Jack Powers just made the suggestion, Al Chopp, why don't
you take some of these daisy golf balls to say
Victor on one side, Daisy on the other, and get
Alan Shephard to hit him on the moon, knowing that
Alan Shepherd wanted to do that. By the way, I
think I know that. I think it was Mitchell that
threw a javelin on the moon. So there have been

(16:53):
two sports played on the Moon that we know of,
But the most famous is is Shepherd stepping out onto
the Moon and he's wearing a spacesuit that makes him
look like the Michelin man. He can barely get his
hands together. And he had taken an excavation tool with him,
which he was supposed to have. And then each astronaut

(17:16):
was allowed to take a personal item with him. Some
of them will take a watch with them, and Shepherd
took a golf head and he tapes it or attaches
it somehow to this excavation tool. He drops the golf
ball on the surface, He takes a one handed swing
and said that one went miles and miles and miles.

(17:41):
Actually it probably went two to four hundred yards because
there is some atmosphere and there is some gravity on
the Moon, and so it doesn't just go out into
space forever. It actually does drop. So it was a
long shot, but it wasn't miles and miles and miles.
By the way, the crew were never allowed to divulge
the brain name of anything they took in the space,

(18:02):
and I've done a little bit of research on it.
It was interesting how they selected the flag that went
to the Moon. They actually would send out six employees,
tell them to buy a flag, bring it back, tear
up all the packaging, get rid of all the tags
on the flag, and then one of those flags was selected.

(18:23):
So no one can ever claim we made the American
flag that's on the Moon. It's so randomly done that
no one knows. But this was a personal item. But
Shepard was instructed never to divulge what Brandy hit, and
he never did. If you just search for this on
the internet, you'll find my information and my story that

(18:48):
I've developed over these golf balls. You'll never find one
by Shepherd where he divulges the brand name. You'll find
people that speculate that he liked this golf ball. I
saw him play that golf ball. It was probably one
of those. My question was of the son of Jack Power,
So how do you know? And he said two ways.

(19:10):
Number One, my father told me every day I put
those golf balls on the moon. Secondly, when my father
would challenge me and tell me to do something and
I'd say, you can't make me do that, he'd say,
I put two golf balls on the moon. If I
can do that, I can make you mow the yard.
It's not like Ellen Shepherd ever said it. It's that

(19:32):
my dad did it. And he said he was very
proud of a lot of things he did for Daisy.
He was very proud of his career, of the people
he knew and associated with, but he was most proud
that he put him on the moon.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
And a special thanks to Katrina Hine for capturing the
audio in a terrific job on the production by Monty Montgomery,
And a special thanks to Joe Murfin for sharing the story.
His museum is the Daisy air Gun Museum, Beautiful Rogers, Arkansas.
And this may be the ultimate PR stunt that nobody
knew about. That's the joy of this one, except the

(20:08):
guy who did the stunt himself. The story of the
Daisy golf balls on the Moon. Here on our American story.