Care Guide
How to Clean Golf Balls at Home (And Why We Do It Differently)
5 min read
Dirty golf balls aren't just a cosmetic problem — dried mud and grass stains in the dimples can genuinely affect spin and flight. The good news is that cleaning them properly at home is simple and takes almost no special equipment. The part worth understanding, though, is that a clean-looking ball and a genuinely good ball aren't always the same thing.
The simple way to clean golf balls at home
- Warm water and dish soap. Fill a bucket or sink with warm water and a few drops of regular dish soap. This is genuinely all most balls need.
- Soak for 10–15 minutes. This softens dried mud and grass stains so you're not scrubbing hard against the cover.
- Scrub gently with an old toothbrush. Focus on the dimples, where dirt collects and where it actually affects performance. Avoid anything abrasive like steel wool — it can scratch the cover.
- Rinse and dry completely. Pat dry with a towel and let them air-dry fully before storing them, ideally not sealed in a damp bag.
For stubborn stains, a paste of baking soda and a little water left on the ball for a few minutes before scrubbing usually lifts what soap alone won't. Avoid bleach or harsh chemicals — they won't damage a ball quickly, but repeated exposure isn't worth the risk for a marginal improvement in whiteness.
Cleaning tells you almost nothing about condition
Here's the catch: a ball can come up spotless in a wash and still be structurally compromised, and a slightly scuffed one can be perfectly fine to play. Cleaning removes dirt — it doesn't reveal waterlogging, cover cuts that have started to seal over, or a ball that's gone slightly out-of-round from impact. Those are the things that actually determine whether a used ball performs like new, and none of them show up just from getting a ball clean.
Why we don't stop at washing
This is exactly why our process goes further than a simple wash. Every ball we sell is soaked, scrubbed, and then individually inspected for cuts, waterlogging, and shape before it's ever graded into Near Mint, B Grade, or C Grade. A ball that looks clean but fails that inspection doesn't get listed at all, regardless of how good it looks. You can see the full process on our Grading Guide.
So if you're cleaning up a bucket of balls you've found or been given, it's worth doing — but treat a clean ball as a starting point for inspection, not proof that it's good to go. Check for any cuts that break the cover, roll it on a flat surface to check it's still round, and if it's been submerged for a long time, be a little more skeptical of how it'll feel off the club.