Necessity being the mother of invention, the golf world has moved forward in various ways during the spread of the coronavirus. One of them is retrieving our golf balls from the hole in a safe manner.

Thanks to Cobblestone Golf Course in the greater Atlanta metro area, golf’s shared spaces — 18 golf holes — seem to adhere to social distancing better than ever. Cobblestone posted a video to its Instagram account of an E-Z Lyft ball retriever that plucks balls from the hole without impeding normal course of play.

The handle, which aligns with the flagstick, is connected to a plastic ring around the flag at the bottom of the hole. Lift the handle with your clubhead and the ball you’ve holed ascends out of the cup on its own little elevator. No need to touch the hole, handle, flagstick, etc. Golfers can go about their business and in a safer way than previously imagined. By now you’re certainly asking yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Check out the simple contraption in the video below.

The device is so simple, and seems to be quite effective. Will we see it become ubiquitously used across the country? We’ll have to be patient to find out. The E-Z Lyft ball retriever is currently a patent-pending item registered to an owner of a machine shop in northwest New York.

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