Anyone tried the pristine condition golf balls on lost golf balls or other similar sites?

[BYK]

On 1/24/2025 at 10:22 PM, awtryau89 said:

I’ve used the pristine versions from LGB on Left Dash and AVX. Here’s what I’ve noticed. These are new balls, never played but some have defects. I’ve gotten balls that don’t have numbers on one side or the alignment aide is not straight. I’ve also seen balls with bad areas of clear coat but to be fair, I just had a brand new sleeve of ProV1 with bad clear coat too. Sent to Titleist and they gave me a brand new dz. I never noticed any performance issues with the LD but I’ve gotten some bad balls that were just duds in the AVX. All of this together got me questioning these balls and my pro sent an email to his rep. LGB probably won’t confirm this but these are new balls that just don’t pass QC. Not sure if they are making XOuts any longer but I believe this is what you are dealing with as Titleist is off loading them in bulk. For what you pay, I don’t mind some bad balls but I would never use these balls in a tournament or in a serious gambling game. 

 

Buddy of mine always orders titleist pristine from here.  I agree, I think at least for Titleist, they preowned are new but with some mild cosmetic defect.  I doubt that they're water balls.  The ones I tried, I couldn't tell between new and these.  

[awtryau89]

1 minute ago, BYK said:

 

Buddy of mine always orders titleist pristine from here.  I agree, I think at least for Titleist, they preowned are new but with some mild cosmetic defect.  I doubt that they're water balls.  The ones I tried, I couldn't tell between new and these.  

More I inspect the ones I had they are definitely defects. A lot of the balls have rough spots in the finish. Mainly just cover defects but I would think they probably effect performance and flight. 

[BYK]

Just now, awtryau89 said:

More I inspect the ones I had they are definitely defects. A lot of the balls have rough spots in the finish. Mainly just cover defects but I would think they probably effect performance and flight. 

I've only seen the ones from him, so limited experience.  But I didn't see any scuffs or rough spots at all.  Maybe I just got lucky, but I had a real hard time telling these from new.  

[JAM01]

Grabbed 4 dozen pristine 2024 AVX from LGB site. First used purchase in years. 100% looked new. 

[awtryau89]

1 hour ago, JAM01 said:

Grabbed 4 dozen pristine 2024 AVX from LGB site. First used purchase in years. 100% looked new. 

Same here. Grabbed some more to finish out the winter. As I said before the balls are definitely new. These are not lake balls or ones that have been hit. I believe they are Titleist seconds or what they used to call Xouts. Mine are all brand new but if you inspect the balls closely you’ll find some that have rough spots in the finish or the alignment marking may be off a bit. Some look perfect and I wonder if those wouldn’t pass the Titleist xray for core alignment. I think these are some of the best deals in balls but I’m a bit wary of playing them in serious tournament rounds. I wish we could get a true explanation on them from LGB or Titleist. 

Edited February 22 by awtryau89

[JAM01]

This is why I grabbed the 2024, figure if they were submerged, it wasn’t too long. 

[lefthack]

I just got 96 "B grade" PXG that look perfectly playable. My expectations were pretty low, but I would say 80% of these look like they have never been hit. With coupon they were $.99 a ball. I'm very happy.

[WWTWD]

Tried it once, got very substandard stuff, never even worried about calling or emailing them and just wrote them off. Havent used since then. 

[trying2scratch]

Just got a fresh order in from planet24_canada eBay store. I'm in Canada so ymmv, but shipping and retail prices are always crazy here.  With the tariff threats I pulled the trigger on a large order last week just in case 🤞

 

Third time using them, always very happy. They have "make offer" on some listings and have had great luck getting a decent extra 10% off plus free shipping.  It's a no brainer for my "game".  

 

I always get urethane balls (Srixon, Vice, Titleist) they are always well cleaned and very hard to tell different from new balls that have been used for handful of holes.  I go for their AAAA Or Grade A.  They can have logos or some player markings mixed in but I'm not fussy. I believe these are the same company as Golfball planet.com and golfballs.ca. 

 

Super satisfied, always fast shipping and great customer service.  Have to shop around a bit on their sites for best deals.  Sometimes eBay listings are better deal with making an offer. Sometimes 50 packs, or online codes give best prices. Depends on what model/quantity your after.  I find the happy medium is 36 counts but ymmv. I like to alternate brands and colors so this gives me all the choice I want and need for a great price. Without having to buy 6 plus dozen.

 

For whatever reason I seem to play better/free'er with a slightly used ball. Give me a fresh brand new ProV and my grip tightens up and I don't swing/turn the same.  May have something to do with the Scottish Genes.... 🤣

[qtlaw]

I've been buying used for last 15 years and I cannot recall one instance where a 5A was anything but a 5A, certainly not one where it underperformed like a water ball.  I don't doubt that there are water balls sold as used but it's not like every single one is a water ball.  I'm a eBayer and I rely on 100% feedback.  Haven't been let down yet.

[herkyjerk]

I have bought mint condition from Lostgolfballs.com for years and you cannot tell a difference in appearance or performance to a brand new ball.  Yes some of the after market balls are watery garbage.  Pay a little more for mint and don’t buy the giant bucket of hacked up rocks.  

[Bombsaway23]

Lost golf balls.com is a joke. They will bait and switch you, and then lie to your face about their process. I’ve bought over 500 golf balls from them and all were the current generation of the titleist truefeel. The last hundred I just received were the previous generation. They lied and stated that they don’t separate by generations. The 500 I bought before were all present generation and the current 100 are the previous generation, no mixing of the two at all. This is not possible, typical bait and switch to get rid of 2 plus year old golf balls. Beware of these people, they will lie to you when what they are saying makes no sense at all.

[GolfGuy321]

I've bought hundreds of Mint V1x and BX from LGB.  No issues

[North Butte]

There have been three or four periods in the past where I was losing a lot of golf balls so I convinced myself that like-new quality used balls were worth buying to save roughly 50% on the cost and minimizing the pain on the occasional horror round where I lose $20 or more worth of balls.

 

Both times it seemed great for a few weeks but eventually, after dozens of rounds I found there had been at least a couple balls out of a batch of 3 dozen that just weren't right. Well struck iron shots were substantially lower and shorter than normal distance, something about the way they reacted on wedge shots was weird and in a couple cases I could even hear a slight difference in impact sound/feel.

 

So I'm quite sure you're trading off a substantial cost savings for the likelihood that maybe one ball in ten will simply not perform like the others even though it is cosmetically perfect. That sort of thing drives me crazy so I will never do the used ball thing again but OTOH, my game nowadays has a lot fewer wild shots than back then (10 years ago maybe?) so it's not very often I'll lose multiple balls in one round. 

 

I also did find that pretty much every large (3doz or more) batch will have at least one ball mixed in that is NOT cosmetically perfect. Sometimes more. If the price of the entire batch is cheap enough, I'm fine with having to toss out one random bad ball when it's obvious like that. What I can't take is the ones that look perfect but are actually bad. I really want to know that when I hit a bad shot it was me and not a problem with the golf ball or golf club. 

 

In the end, I'd rather play a $30/dozen model of new golf ball instead of a used Pro V1. Or a new $15/dozen ball instead of a used $30/dozen model. I can deal with slightly lower performance that's consistent much better than uncertainty about whether each ball is OK. And nowadays there are plenty of affordable deals on balls that are quite decent quality, especially if you shop for sales and when necessary buy several dozen to get a price break. 

 

For instance, if I could buy three dozen Maxfli Tour at Dick's instead of three dozen "Pristine" used Chrome Tour X for roughly the same price that would be a no-brainer for me. The new Maxfli every time. 

Edited July 17 by North Butte

[grochol17]

14 hours ago, North Butte said:

There have been three or four periods in the past where I was losing a lot of golf balls so I convinced myself that like-new quality used balls were worth buying to save roughly 50% on the cost and minimizing the pain on the occasional horror round where I lose $20 or more worth of balls.

 

Both times it seemed great for a few weeks but eventually, after dozens of rounds I found there had been at least a couple balls out of a batch of 3 dozen that just weren't right. Well struck iron shots were substantially lower and shorter than normal distance, something about the way they reacted on wedge shots was weird and in a couple cases I could even hear a slight difference in impact sound/feel.

 

So I'm quite sure you're trading off a substantial cost savings for the likelihood that maybe one ball in ten will simply not perform like the others even though it is cosmetically perfect. That sort of thing drives me crazy so I will never do the used ball thing again but OTOH, my game nowadays has a lot fewer wild shots than back then (10 years ago maybe?) so it's not very often I'll lose multiple balls in one round. 

 

I also did find that pretty much every large (3doz or more) batch will have at least one ball mixed in that is NOT cosmetically perfect. Sometimes more. If the price of the entire batch is cheap enough, I'm fine with having to toss out one random bad ball when it's obvious like that. What I can't take is the ones that look perfect but are actually bad. I really want to know that when I hit a bad shot it was me and not a problem with the golf ball or golf club. 

 

In the end, I'd rather play a $30/dozen model of new golf ball instead of a used Pro V1. Or a new $15/dozen ball instead of a used $30/dozen model. I can deal with slightly lower performance that's consistent much better than uncertainty about whether each ball is OK. And nowadays there are plenty of affordable deals on balls that are quite decent quality, especially if you shop for sales and when necessary buy several dozen to get a price break. 

 

For instance, if I could buy three dozen Maxfli Tour at Dick's instead of three dozen "Pristine" used Chrome Tour X for roughly the same price that would be a no-brainer for me. The new Maxfli every time. 

 

I forgot about this thread and never followed up, but I decided not to go with the used balls because the cost savings vs getting new balls on sale (like Titleist's 4-for-3) wasn't big enough to overcome the unknowns of used balls.

[ahenderX]

On 7/17/2025 at 6:35 AM, North Butte said:

There have been three or four periods in the past where I was losing a lot of golf balls so I convinced myself that like-new quality used balls were worth buying to save roughly 50% on the cost and minimizing the pain on the occasional horror round where I lose $20 or more worth of balls.

 

Both times it seemed great for a few weeks but eventually, after dozens of rounds I found there had been at least a couple balls out of a batch of 3 dozen that just weren't right. Well struck iron shots were substantially lower and shorter than normal distance, something about the way they reacted on wedge shots was weird and in a couple cases I could even hear a slight difference in impact sound/feel.

 

So I'm quite sure you're trading off a substantial cost savings for the likelihood that maybe one ball in ten will simply not perform like the others even though it is cosmetically perfect. That sort of thing drives me crazy so I will never do the used ball thing again but OTOH, my game nowadays has a lot fewer wild shots than back then (10 years ago maybe?) so it's not very often I'll lose multiple balls in one round. 

 

I also did find that pretty much every large (3doz or more) batch will have at least one ball mixed in that is NOT cosmetically perfect. Sometimes more. If the price of the entire batch is cheap enough, I'm fine with having to toss out one random bad ball when it's obvious like that. What I can't take is the ones that look perfect but are actually bad. I really want to know that when I hit a bad shot it was me and not a problem with the golf ball or golf club. 

 

In the end, I'd rather play a $30/dozen model of new golf ball instead of a used Pro V1. Or a new $15/dozen ball instead of a used $30/dozen model. I can deal with slightly lower performance that's consistent much better than uncertainty about whether each ball is OK. And nowadays there are plenty of affordable deals on balls that are quite decent quality, especially if you shop for sales and when necessary buy several dozen to get a price break. 

 

For instance, if I could buy three dozen Maxfli Tour at Dick's instead of three dozen "Pristine" used Chrome Tour X for roughly the same price that would be a no-brainer for me. The new Maxfli every time. 

I’m a Maxfli fan. One can also buy new 2024 TP5/TP5x logo overruns on eBay for $24.95 a dozen w/ free shipping.

[TallGuy90]

Bought 5A from LGB and they where maybe 3/4A at best. I don't recommend them 

[ScooterMcTavish]

On 7/17/2025 at 8:23 PM, grochol17 said:

 

I forgot about this thread and never followed up, but I decided not to go with the used balls because the cost savings vs getting new balls on sale (like Titleist's 4-for-3) wasn't big enough to overcome the unknowns of used balls.

I’ve bought pristine golf balls from a Canadian retailer, and loved the free customization offer.

 

Every single one of them looked like new.

 

But I certainly noticed some of them did not react like new balls.  Last time I ordered 4 dozen B-RXS, and they were noticeably “off”.

 

Considering how mental this game is, it’s just not worth it to me.  Also considering how rarely I lose balls, I cannot justify the cost savings.

 

YMMV based on how many balls you lose, but for me, the savings are not worth it.