Using a six-iron head attached to a lunar sample-collecting tool, Shepard swung one-handed in his bulky spacesuit on the Fra Mauro highlands. His first swing was a whiff into the dust; the second sent a ball sailing what he joked went 'miles and miles' in the low lunar gravity, a lighthearted coda to America's third crewed Moon landing.
Alan Shepard, America's first man in space a decade earlier aboard Freedom 7, had smuggled the clubhead and two golf balls aboard Apollo 14 without NASA's official sanction, tucking them into a sock stored with his tools. Ground control had no idea what was coming until Shepard, awkwardly one-handed because his stiff pressurized suit prevented a full two-handed grip, announced he had 'a little white pellet' he intended to strike.
His first swing badly missed, gouging only lunar soil. The second connected better, and Shepard's exuberant call that the ball sailed 'miles and miles' became one of the mission's most quoted lines, even though later analysis suggested the actual distance was more like 200 yards.
Crewmate Edgar Mitchell needled him by tossing a lunar rake javelin-style nearby. The stunt drew criticism from some who felt it trivialized a $400 million scientific mission, but it also became one of the most human, memorable images of the entire Apollo program — proof that even 240,000 miles from home, astronauts wanted a little fun.
Key people: Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell