Shelf Life of golf balls?

[PatsFan]

Doesn't the eraser get hard because it's exposed to the air? The ball's case is hardly exposed to the air.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

Unless it was vacum sealed they are exposed.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[Go4it]

You can extend the shelf life of your balls if you keep them covered and stored in a dry, dark cool place at the ideal temperature range of between 45 - 55 degrees F

Are you a doctor?

 

[golfinnut]

Its kind of a tough question to answer. Speaking to someone in the space it will depend on what level of performance you are okay with as it will change at different stages of life. I asked if 5 years was a fair number and the response was "If you have 5 year old golf balls, you should buy new ones".

But wouldn't you buy new ones just because the technology was better? Not just because they were old?

 

[PatsFan]

Sure if your the guy who runs out the minute a new model is released. I'm the guy who usually buys last year's model because it's a lot cheaper.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[JB]

But wouldn't you buy new ones just because the technology was better? Not just because they were old?

Possibly. I know I would.
But if 5% lost (just generalizing) is okay for someone, then maybe they wouldn't. Then add 5% lost, plus lack of new tech.

 

[JB]

Sure if your the guy who runs out the minute a new model is released. I'm the guy who usually buys last year's model because it's a lot cheaper.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

Absolutely. But let me ask this. As a golf equipment guy, would you be interested in jumping on that 5-6 year old driver because it is even cheaper? Do you think its as good as the current crop or even last year's crop of products?

 

[OGputtnfool]

Absolutely. But let me ask this. As a golf equipment guy, would you be interested in jumping on that 5-6 year old driver because it is even cheaper? Do you think its as good as the current crop or even last year's crop of products?

I have had much better results with the TM M1 than I did with the M3. Granted the M1 is a 440 and the M3 was a 460, but I'd think that difference is minimal.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[golfinnut]

I have had much better results with the TM M1 than I did with the M3. Granted the M1 is a 440 and the M3 was a 460, but I'd think that difference is minimal.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

Not to derail the thread but if the difference is minimal between 5 year old drivers, why are we constantly switching & getting the newest clubs? Because we can?

 

[OGputtnfool]

Not to derail the thread but if the difference is minimal between 5 year old drivers, why are we constantly switching & getting the newest clubs? Because we can?

I guess. My previous driver was a 2007 TM Burner TP.

However, the minimal comment was comparing the difference between the M1 440 and the M3 460 to the difference between the M1 440 to the M3 440. Does that make sense? If not, I'll jump on the computer to type a longer response.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[JB]

I have had much better results with the TM M1 than I did with the M3. Granted the M1 is a 440 and the M3 was a 460, but I'd think that difference is minimal.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

Because you hit one better does not mean that the advances don't exist. It could be as little as grip one day or as much as better fit.
Advancements in golf balls over a 5 year period have been fairly large by every single company.

 

[OGputtnfool]

Because you hit one better does not mean that the advances don't exist. It could be as little as grip one day or as much as better fit.
Advancements in golf balls over a 5 year period have been fairly large by every single company.

I agree with everything you said in the quoted post.

I was talking about neither golf balls nor a single day with either of those clubheads.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[PatsFan]

Absolutely. But let me ask this. As a golf equipment guy, would you be interested in jumping on that 5-6 year old driver because it is even cheaper? Do you think its as good as the current crop or even last year's crop of products?

I think there is a point of diminishing returns but a 1 year old driver/ball is good enough for me.

I think anything over 3+ years your probably giving up something with new tech.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[aljaklaw]

just curious, would anybody buy headphones or computer speakers that are 10-15 years old?

 

[OGputtnfool]

just curious, would anybody buy headphones or computer speakers that are 10-15 years old?

Depending on the price point, I don't know why not.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[mdowney58]

Something went wrong with my post. Disregard.

 

[OGputtnfool]

Something went wrong with my post. Disregard.

I hate it when that happens.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[Reframmellator]

I could see Urethane cover balls degrading much faster than Surlyn cover balls, but even at that, I can't see them degrading that quickly. Persoanlly I can't see the polymers under the covers degrading much if at all...certianlly not appreciable within 5 years.

I work in the polymer industry, we produce polymer components that are subject to much higher stresses than what a golf balls sees (imagine that ), and we give a shelf life of 10 years on most parts (kept out of he sun in dry room temp conditions). As a matter of fact, parts kept in a dry, temp controlled enviroment away from UV light will last much longer than even that...but we have to give a shelf life, so we use 10 years. My background is polymers and my knowledge of them (including Urehtanes) would lead me to say, 5 years is ridiculously conservative if balls are in the packaging in a dark space in room temps.

Now, when we introduce high humidity to Urethane or worse yet, put them in water....forget about it. Urethanes are acutely sensative to water and are affected by a phenominom called Hydrolysis. This is when the Urethanes chains begin to break down and become brittle. Surlyn will not be affcted by water to much degree as it has a very low permiation rate to water (hence why a lot of packaging wrap is Surlyn). UV is bad, for both Urethane and Surlyn. Another myth is keeping balls in a cold area. Warming and cooling of a ball within a range of winter temps to summer highs has very little affect. So as an example, keeping your balls in a cold garage in the winter is no big thing if you leave them there (in a dark space) and there is not too much humidity. Even if the ball is in -40F as an example (at -40F, you mercifully won't have humidity either LOL) and the polymers the ball is comprised of fall below their glass transition temperature, as long as you don't try to use the ball, the balls will normalize when they warm back up and will be no worse for wear.

Basically sun and water are bad, but dark, dry cool places not so much. If you ask me, I don't see how a ball wouldn't last decades in ideal storage conditions. Just my 0.02$

Another polymers guy!

I agree with the bulk of what you said about the covers. I disagree just slightly on the core. The core is made of a type of butadiene rubber. Rubber bounces because the molecular chains are tied together (crosslinks). These ties allow the chains to deflect and absorb energy, then return to shape and release energy. The more crosslinks, the stiffer the rubber. A pencil eraser gets hard because a combination of time, temperature, oxygen and UV attack the rubber molecules and cause an increase in crosslinks. A golf ball core starts life as a liquid, and the crosslinks are built in to cure the mass into a solid core. There would still be some unreacted crosslinks and perhaps some catalyst, so the same thing can happen on the inside of a golf ball over a period of years, and not much of a change would have to happen to result in a 5% change in performance. Because the covers are decent to very good oxygen barriers and the temperatures are not generally extreme, the reactions are slow, but they do occur, and given enough time, the effects add up. Given the service life of a golf ball, there is no incentive for manufacturers to fine-tune the formulation to provide decades of stability. Too much cost, too little benefit. My educated guess: a golf ball stored in a cool dry basement? Maybe 10-15 years. A golfball kept in my garage through four seasons? Maybe 3-4 years.

Th excerpts below from a Chemical and Engineering News article tell you more than you ever wanted to know. It also estimated annual golf ball production at 1.2 billion. (That question appeared in a thread a while ago.)

Manufacturers have taken a fresh swing at the chemistry of golf balls in recent years to make balls that suit every golfer, from the duffers that shank them out of bounds to the latest hot shots who bend them around bunkers on the pro tour.

Much of the latest chemistry is designed to make balls that are more controllable or fly farther—or both. Softer balls typically give golfers better control, while harder balls travel faster. The latest golf ball brand names (Max, Rush, TruSpeed, and Velocity) hint at where the technology is headed.

About 1.2 billion golf balls are produced every year. There are more than 80 different types of balls of varying construction materials and designs.

Although major changes have taken place in ball formulation recently, golf ball technology has been on an upswing for more than 500 years; that is, ever since the game was invented on the eastern coast of Scotland sometime in the 15th century. Back in the day, golfers played with wooden clubs and made their balls from local hardwoods such as beech.

In 1618, golf ball technology really began to take off with the creation of the featherie, a leather pouch stuffed with boiled feathers from chickens or geese. The featherie-making process was lyrically described in “The Goff,” a 1743 poem by Thomas Mathison. The feathers and leather started wet and as the leather dried, it shrank to create a tightly packed ball.

By 1848, the featherie was dropped and the gutty came on the scene. The ball was made from gutta-percha, a type of coagulated latex, likely from Palaquium gutta, a fruit originating from the Yucatan. When gutta-percha was heated in water and rolled into a sphere, it formed a virtually indestructible ball. Historians widely attribute the gutty’s creation in the 1840s to Robert Adams Paterson, a divinity student at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

With the advent of industrialization in the late 1800s, companies began producing rubber balls from molds. In 1898, Ohio-based tire and rubber producer B.F. Goodrich introduced the first ball that had rubber threads wound around a natural rubber core, all encased in a gutta-percha sphere.

The wound ball went through a number of incarnations—including one with a compressed air core that tended to explode—before manufacturers adopted a design that replaced the gutta-percha cover with balata, a form of natural rubber obtained from a South American tree. Throughout much of the early 20th century, gutta-percha and balata balls became the weapons of choice for most golfers, pro and amateur alike.

These days, a golf ball is typically made of a butadiene rubber center surrounded by one or more rubber mantles and topped off with a tough skin. These outer layers are made from blends of high-performance ethylene copolymers known as ionomeric resins, which harden through ionic crosslinking between negatively charged acid groups and positively charged metal salts, such as zinc and sodium salts.

This design is favored because the resulting balls have a hard core with an outside that is compressible, or soft, according to the website of DuPont, which has been high on the leader board for golf ball technology for more than 50 years. DuPont’s technology, for example, is being used by Nike under the brand name Speedlock RZN.

Other rubber and polymer producers are also collaborating with golf ball manufacturers to make a ball that really flies. Japanese golf ball maker Kasco has been using polymer producer Lanxess’s neodymium polybutadiene rubber in the core of its balls. This material efficiently converts impact energy into kinetic energy and thus enhances flying distance, Lanxess’s website claims.

Perhaps the most quintessential part of a golf ball is its pitted coating, which affects how the ball rolls and how it feels when it is hit by a golfer’s club. Dimples also reduce a ball’s drag as it flies through the air. Manufacturers alter the size and number of dimples to adjust performance.

PPG, among others, has produced coatings for golf balls. The company has been producing a range of proprietary coating formulations, including scratch-resistant ones made from polyurethane, for companies such as the Titleist balls producer Acushnet for more than a decade.

 

[Wiskey]

Absolutely. But let me ask this. As a golf equipment guy, would you be interested in jumping on that 5-6 year old driver because it is even cheaper? Do you think its as good as the current crop or even last year's crop of products?

I know it's not at all the point of your comment, but I just had to say that this is exactly what I did. I was given a set of clubs, and the driver was a Ping Rapture 13.5 degree with a Senior flex shaft. I have a 95mph swing speed according to my instructor's trackman and he said that it wasn't the club for me. Right now I'm putting all of my budget into golf play, and lessons because at my level I feel that will give me the most improvement, so rather than buying a Ping G400 Max I picked up a used Ping G driver with a stiff shaft for $170. It's a huge improvement over what I had and gives me more money to play twilight rounds.

As far as balls go however; I am extremely particular. You can't buy them in any store, or anywhere online.

I will only play balls found on the course

Thankfully, these days, I find far more than I loose.

Whiskey

 

[waazzupppp]

I can say the 2005 Nike One Gold's that I have on the shelf still play every bit as good as the new balls out there. No distance issues or control problems...

I will say that the newer Urethane covers are much more durable though.

 

[Munich77]

For me it always an obsession - as a teenager I always looked for balls - now I cannot stop. I have way too many balls...just seems strange to buy balls when I am finding them by the dozen.