Skip to content
Divot&Draw

The Ball · Golf Balls

Do Golf Balls Go Bad?

Short answer: a boxed ball outlasts your interest in it. Water and scuffs are a different story — here's what actually degrades and when.

By Stephen V.Updated How we rank
#ad

We earn a commission when you buy through our Amazon links, at no extra cost to you. It never changes our rankings — and we'll tell you when the cheaper ball or club is the better buy. How this works.

A modern golf ball stored in a cool, dry place at room temperature will play the same years from now as it does today — several years of shelf life is normal, and the box will probably outlast your interest in that model. The things that actually degrade a ball are water, sustained heat, and a scuffed or cut cover.

Storage: basically indefinite

Kept indoors at normal temperatures, a sleeve of golf balls does not meaningfully deteriorate over a few years. What you should avoid is leaving them to cook in a hot car or a freezing garage for months on end — repeated temperature extremes are harder on a ball than time is.

Water balls and lake balls

A ball that spends a short time in water is fine. The concern is prolonged submersion: over weeks and months, water can slowly permeate the cover and affect the core, which is why cheap “recycled” lake balls are a bit of a lottery — you don’t know how long each one soaked. For a value round they’re fine; for a ball you’re trusting to perform, buy new.

Scuffs, cuts and cart-path rash

A little cosmetic scuffing doesn’t change how a ball flies. A genuine cut or a cover gouge — the kind you get off a cart path or a wedge blade — does, because it disrupts the aerodynamics and the cover’s grip. Rule of thumb: if you can feel the damage with a fingernail, retire the ball to the shag bag.

Questions

Frequently asked

How long do unused golf balls last?
Stored indoors at room temperature, several years with no meaningful loss of performance. Modern multi-layer balls are stable — time in a cupboard is not what degrades them; heat, water and cover damage are.
Are lake balls or water balls still good?
Briefly-submerged balls are fine. Balls that sat in water for weeks or months can absorb moisture into the core and lose performance, and recycled 'lake balls' are a gamble because you can't tell how long each soaked. Great for practice, less so for a counting round.
Does a scuffed golf ball affect distance?
Light cosmetic scuffing, no. A real cut or gouge you can feel with a fingernail, yes — it disrupts the aerodynamics and cover grip. If you can feel the damage, move it to the practice pile.

Keep reading

Related

Receipts

Sources

We do not run a testing lab, and we do not pretend to. Every spec number here comes from a manufacturer's published sheet or an official standard, cited above. Where we could not verify something, we say so on the page rather than quietly leaving it out. Read our full method.