How to Tell If Old Golf Balls Are Still Good

That bucket of balls on the garage shelf, or the half-empty sleeve that's been riding around in your trunk since last summer, probably plays better than you think. A golf ball kept out of heat holds up for years. The ones that have actually gone bad usually give themselves away in about two minutes, once you know what to look for.

• Most are fine: a ball kept away from heat is usually good for 24 months to 5 years, according to GOLF.com.
• Two-minute check: look it over for cuts and cracks, note the scuffing, give it a squeeze and a bounce, and think about where it's been stored.
• Heat is the real threat, not cold: both a long-term USGA storage comparison and a Skratch Golf hot/cold test point the same way.
• Serious players: if you're chasing every stroke, retire anything that's spent a summer in a hot trunk or several winters in an unheated garage, even if it still looks fine.

Do golf balls go bad?

Not on a fixed clock, no. Modern golf balls are built to hold their performance for a long time, and GOLF.com's gear desk puts the realistic window at roughly 24 months to 5 years, depending entirely on how the ball spent that time. A ball that lived in a drawer or a golf bag kept indoors is a different object than one that baked in a car trunk through three summers.

The conditions matter more than the calendar. Heat and UV exposure are the two things that actually break a ball down over time; a ball never exposed to either can outlast that upper window comfortably, while one that's been cooked in a hot trunk can lose something well inside it. That's the honest answer: age alone doesn't tell you much, and storage history tells you almost everything. The checks below are built around that idea.

How to check an old ball

Run through these in order. None of them need a launch monitor, a scale, or anything you don't already have in the garage.

1. Look for cuts, cracks and cover damage. A ball with a visible cut through the cover, a crack around the dimples, or a soft, mushy-feeling spot has structural damage, and that's an easy call: it's done, regardless of how old it is. This single check rules out more "is it still good" questions than anything else on this list.
2. Check scuffs and paint wear. Light scuffing and a dulled finish are cosmetic and don't tell you much on their own; this is a visual judgment call, not a measurement, and it's not worth attaching a specific yardage number to. What matters is whether the scuffing is surface-level (fine) or has started to open up the cover itself (not fine, see step 1).
3. Give it a squeeze and a bounce. Compare it to a ball you know is fresh, squeezing both and bouncing both on a hard floor. This is a rough relative check, not a precise test, and it's mainly useful for catching a ball that feels noticeably softer or deader than it should. Treat a big difference as a flag worth following up with the other checks, not a verdict on its own.
4. Think about where it's been stored. This is the biggest single clue you have. A ball that's lived in a hot car trunk through a few summers has had a much rougher ride than one kept in an indoor closet or a climate-controlled garage, even if the two balls are the same age and look similar side by side. If you can't remember where a ball's been, treat that uncertainty itself as a reason to lean cautious.
5. Optional: the Epsom-salt float test. Stir Epsom salt into a glass or bowl of water, a little at a time, until the solution is dense enough for the ball to float rather than sink, according to MyGolfSpy and CaddieHQ. Once it settles, mark the spot facing straight up, give it a flick to spin it, and let it settle again. Do that two or three times. A perfectly balanced core comes to rest at a different spot each time; a ball with an off-center core keeps turning the same marked spot back to the top, since the heavier side always sinks. This tells you whether the core is centered, which matters for roll consistency on the greens. It doesn't tell you whether a ball is old, worn out, or still good to play; a brand-new ball can fail this test, and a battered old one can pass it. Treat it as an optional extra for players who care about putting consistency, not as a check on the list above.

Heat vs cold: what actually hurts a ball

Between the two, heat does more damage than cold, and two separate pieces of research point the same direction.

USGA senior director of equipment standards Steve Quintavalla ran a long-term comparison, cited by GOLF.com: a ball stored frozen lost about 0.4% of its ball speed, against roughly 1% lost by a ball stored at room temperature, over 14 years. That's a storage test, not a single afternoon, and it suggests sustained warmth costs a ball more over time than sustained cold does.

Skratch Golf's hot/cold test, run on a single ball and not peer-reviewed, found the same direction on compression: a control ball read 95, dropped to 82 after heating to 125°F (52°C), and rose to 99 after freezing at negative 9°F (-23°C). The heated ball moved further from its baseline than the frozen one did. Neither figure has a second source, so take each as a single data point rather than a settled number, but they agree on which direction matters.

One thing worth separating clearly: cold storage isn't the same problem as cold play. Everything above is about how a ball ages sitting in a garage or a trunk over weeks and years. Playing in cold weather on a given day is a different issue entirely, covered in how compression shifts with temperature; the practical fix there, keeping two or three balls warm in a pocket or a dedicated pouch during a cold round rather than leaving a full sleeve in a cold bag, is exactly what our cold-weather playing guide already recommends, and that advice holds regardless of how the ball was stored beforehand.

How to store golf balls

Getting this right now is what keeps next season's balls out of the "is it still good" question entirely.

1. Keep them on an indoor shelf, not in the garage, if you can help it. GOLF.com's gear desk recommends roughly 70°F to 80°F (21°C to 27°C), which rules out most garages, which swing further in both directions than a closet or a hall shelf does.
2. Get them out of the car trunk. A trunk is the single worst place to store golf balls for any length of time; it routinely runs hotter than the outside temperature in summer and colder in winter, and it's the most common way a bag of balls ends up with the exact storage history described above.
3. Keep them dry. A sealed sleeve or a closed container is enough; there's no need for anything elaborate, just somewhere that isn't damp.
4. Warm a cold-stored ball up before you play it. If a ball has been sitting somewhere cold, a cold garage overnight, for instance, give it time to reach room temperature before heading to the course. It's a small step, and it means the ball you're hitting on the first tee is behaving the way it's supposed to, not the way an overnight cold-soak left it.

When to replace them

Most balls that pass the checks above are fine to keep playing. A couple of judgment calls are worth naming directly.

If a ball fails step 1 (visible cuts, cracks, or a mushy spot), replace it, full stop, regardless of how new or old it is. If a ball's storage history is genuinely unknown, playing it occasionally is low-risk; I'll admit I've got a soft spot for hoarding found balls off the edge of a fairway that I'll probably never actually play, which is more about not wanting to throw a perfectly good-looking ball away than any real plan for them.

For serious players chasing every stroke, the calculation is tighter. A ball that's spent a full summer in a hot trunk, or several winters in an unheated garage, is worth retiring even if it still looks clean and passes the bounce check, because the point where you'd actually notice the difference is smaller than the point where a weekend golfer would. If you're not sure which category you fall into, the honest answer is that most readers can keep playing a ball that passes the visual and storage checks without worrying further.

If you're ready to replace a batch outright, a budget dozen like the Wilson Duo Soft covers most casual rounds without asking much of your wallet. If you don't mind playing recovered balls, Second Chance's Grade A recycled lake balls, sold as Callaway Supersoft, the same model covered in our Callaway Supersoft review, are a solid way to stock up cheaply. And if you're working out which ball tier actually fits your game rather than just replacing what you had, our handicap-based golf ball guide is the better next stop; it's also worth a look if you're still building out a full starter set, alongside our beginner equipment guide.

Can golf balls go bad in a hot car?

Is it OK to store golf balls in the garage over winter?

Are lake balls worth buying?

Does the float test tell you if a ball is old?

Most of what's sitting in your garage or trunk right now is probably fine to play. Run the two-minute check, factor in where each ball has actually lived, and store whatever you're keeping somewhere stable so you're not asking this question again next spring.