by Jimmy Patrick

Created on: February 25, 2010

Keeping your golf ball clean during a round of golf should be at the top of your priority list, right up there with putting tees in your pocket or taking off the head cover before hitting the ball.  A dirty golf ball will not only alter the flight of the ball and cause poor contact between club face and ball, but it will help cement a poor mental state within and doom your score.

The dimples on a golf ball have been constructed and shaped by scientists to the point that different brands have different kinds of dimples.  There are golf balls with hexagon shaped dimples, oval shaped dimples, even golf balls that have dimples varying in size and shape across their surface.  The traditional dimples, however, are uniformly round in shape and size across the surface of the golf ball. 

Dimples on a golf ball help to catch the air circulating around the ball as it flies through the air.  This helps the ball fly true and helps the ball stay in the air longer by sort of riding on little pockets of air.  If even one of those dimples is caked with dirt, it will cause your golf ball to fly incorrectly.

In most cases one or two dirty dimples aren’t going to make the difference in a golf ball hitting the green or not, but why take the chance.  Make sure your golf ball is always clean and let the scientific research work to your advantage.

The rules of golf only allow golfers an opportunity to clean their golf ball prior to teeing off on each hole and prior to putting, when you can mark your ball on the green and pick it up.  All golfers should take advantage of each of these opportunities.

Occasionally, if conditions on a golf course are extremely wet and muddy, the “lift, clean and place rule” can be brought in to effect.  If you watch televised golf, you may have seen this rule in play on the PGA Tour. 

You may have also noticed that when this rule is in effect, the scores are extremely low for that day.  The scores are low in part due to soft greens, but also in part due to the players always hitting a clean golf ball.  Their accuracy increases to the point that many involved with the PGA Tour consider the “lift, clean and place” rule to be a form of cheating.

One thing is for certain, you will never see a PGA Tour professional turn down an opportunity to clean their golf ball.  If it is within the rules to clean it, they will clean it because they know how important it

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