Astronaut Alan Shepard was the first space athlete. On the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, at the end of a 4.5-hour moonwalk, Shepard took a lunar sampling device modified with a six-iron club head and hit two golf balls.
According to a 2021 photo analysis, Shepard's first ball went 25 yards. The second set a record for longest golf shot on the moon: 40 yards. These are paltry distances compared to those seen in Earth golf, partly because Shepard's stiff spacesuit allowed him to swing with just one hand. Yet more than 50 years later, his record still stands.
