Why is there a difference between a golf club needing to be light as possible so you can swing harder, but if you make a ball lighter you can’t necessarily throw it further than a baseball/cricket ball?
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With respect to throwing a ball: there is a limit to how fast you can move your arm. Disregarding wind or other forces, the ball can never leave your hand going faster than your hand did.
Generally, you can throw a lighter ball faster than a heavy ball. But as you make the ball lighter and lighter, you hit a point of diminishing returns, where the added speed gets smaller and smaller in proportion to the reduced weight. Eventually you’ll hit a point where making it lighter makes no difference as you’ve reached the limit to how fast your arm can move.
Now, in a vacuum, that would still result in you being able to throw a lighter ball further. The lighter ball leaves your hand at the fastest speed, and so it will go the furthest. However, you don’t throw balls in a vacuum – you throw them through air. And air pushes back against the ball, eating away at its speed. A heavier ball has more inertia and so this drag force will have less effect on it – the ball will still be slowed but less so (every second or every meter of flight) than the lighter ball.
This drag force is the reason why there is a sweet spot for throwing things far, which is not too heavy but not too light either. Too heavy, and you won’t be able to impart enough speed on the ball (or other object) to make it go far. Too light, and you will hit your speed limit, while the ball will quickly be slowed to a stop by air resistance after leaving your hand.
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