I have never given much thought to the ball that I use until this off season (stupid NY winters) when all I had to get my golf fix were magazines, TV and the internet.  All I saw was ads from different ball companies stating that their balls would help players hit it longer, straighter and spin it on the green.  I use “pre-loved” balls that I had purchased on eBay for a fairly substantial discount over almost any decent brand name ball new. I haven’t had any issues with them but now I have started to think about whether or not I would notice it if there were any differences.

Then in the latest issue of Golf Digest (April 2009) the Frugal Golfer highlighted all the places on the internet that are selling only used golf balls I realized that there must be some serious demand and that many other golfers must be doing the same thing I am. I decided to check out some of the forums online to see if I could find out what other people thought about the new vs. used debate.

I came accross a republished Golf Digest article on the effects of water submerssion on golf balls.  The results – a six yard loss of distance after eight days, a 12-yard loss after three months and a 15-yard loss after six months. I guess  I have a new excuse the next time my GPS measures  a well hit drive only 205 yards. Even with that info out there it seems like people are flocking to sites like lostgolfballs.com, aaausedgolfballs.com and golfballnut.com.  Most every site also has listings on eBay in the Used Golf Balls category so you are able to compare the listings all in one place which makes it my go to place for ball shopping.

Any Real Concensus?

It doesn’t seem like any one really cares about any possible drawbacks of playing used golf balls. Maybe it’s the state of the economy or maybe the average or even above average player just isn’t able to tell the difference.  I wonder if you gave a tour player on the highest grade balls and didn’t tell them would they know the difference? The very few people that did voice any concern over the used balls seemed to be tournament players and some others that came off sounding a bit pretentious. If I could afford to lose the equivalent of a new club every 8 – 10 rounds I would use brand new Pro V1 balls but since I can’t I think that I can break 100 using some quality used balls.

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