It should go without saying but don’t play with a cracked golf ball. A little story. I was playing in my golf cave the other night and felt a little stiff after my few warmup shots. So after the first drive and first few full shots were short of target, I thought no biggie. Maybe I’m not getting quite the full shoulder turn and again my lower back felt a little stiff.
When you are playing in the sim or golf cave as I call it, there is no need to switch out golf balls. You just hit your drive, then an iron or two and then put with the same ball. So I was whacking away and as a 16-18 handicap, I don’t hit the ball tremendously far. Still, every now and then on a warm day I catch a drive and am amazed. I know it will get out to 240 yards and sometimes more.
I caught one on the 4th hole. I then looked at my Bushnell Launch Pro and on screen with the GSPro and saw a 193 yard drive. Nah. That can’t be right. Then I struck a very good 8 iron and knew I would be 110 yards from the green. Yet I was 140 yards away. I took a look at the ball and it was cracked. Arghhhhh.
Immediately reminded me of a video I saw a few days ago where someone literally showed the difference between clean golf balls and golf balls that haven’t been cleaned or had blades of grass on them as they were on the green. He literally used something like you would use to check the stimp of a green. Clean balls rolled into the hole while dirty balls did not.
In regards to mudballs, not much you can do about it if your ball lands in the middle of the fairway or rough and has picked up mud. Not unless your buddies don’t mind. The same is said of balls that you might find in the water. Imagine if a ball has been in a lake for weeks on end. If water gets past the outer layer you are bound to lose distance. It is difficult to tell how much yardage may be lost on any given ball due to mud, water, a scuff or being cracked.
In the case of a ball being cracked, having a scuff, or being in the water too long my recommendation is to toss the ball. Sure, you may want to use a damaged ball over a par 3 with a lake in front but remember, you may lose 20+ yards on the shot which could negate the distance you are trying to get on a shot.
