The latest gadget from my best of the rest of the PGA Merchandise Show to make it review is the Ball Brite personal golf ball cleaner.  The Ball Brite (without using any of the marketing speak) is a no nonsense clip-on pouch for cleaning golf balls.  How’s that for simple?.

Shelly Basta, CEO of Ball Brite was kind enough to send me one of their pouches for review, and while at the onset I wasn’t sure if it was the type of product I’d actually use (my buddy The Bean though, this is right up his alley), the policy here at Qwowi is to pretty much try anything we can get our hands on, I clipped it to my bag and headed out to the links.

Why should I care if my ball is a little dirty?

It doesn’t take a genius (or marketing collateral from the folks at Ball Brite) to know that a dirty ball can hurt your golf game.  Just like a damaged ball, a ball covered in dirt, grass, or god knows what else, can rob you of distance and accuracy.  On and around the greens, a gunk covered ball will cost you some of the precision your ball needs to find the bottom of the cup.  In short, clean ball good, dirty ball bad.

Using the Ball Brite

Prepping the Ball Brite for a day on the links is simple, and here at Qwowi, as we’ve said many times over, we like simple.  What could be simpler than pouring a little bit of water into a pouch and clipping it to your golf bag?  Better still, I suppose, there’s no hard and fast rule that you have to clip the Ball Brite to anything.  Clipped or not clipped - it works either way.

Cleaning a ball with the Ball Brite, well, that’s easy too.  The Ball Brite’s rugged yet flexible neoprene outer shell stretches just enough to allow a golf ball to enter the main cleaning chamber, while remaining taught enough to prevent the ball from accidentally popping out during cleaning.  You could probably even store a ball or two in there if you were so inclined.

Once you’ve popped your filthy Titleist (or Callaway, Nike, or whatever ball you happen to be playing - personally I love the TaylorMade TP series) into the Ball Brite, all you do is spend a few second using your thumbs and fingers to rub the ball around inside the proprietary Ball Brite dirt-removing liner (your fingers stay on the outside).  After all it’s the friction and abrasive action that cleans the ball.  Yes, we are talking about a little bit of manual effort (easy and efficient as it may be).  There’s no David Copperfield style trickery at work here.

After just a few seconds of jostling your ball around inside the Ball Brite, give it a little squeeze and out pops a very clean, and almost completely dry, golf ball.  Actually, maybe there is a little bit of magic happening here.

Now I’m well aware that many golf courses have golf ball cleaners on most, if not all holes, but the Ball Brite has some pretty significant advantages over the rusty swamp buckets found on your local links.  In my mind the biggest advantage of the Ball Brite is the fact that it’s machine washable, which means it won’t develop that festering pond water smell that one commonly encounters in those less than well maintained on course models.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a greenside ball washer.  It’s really a shame too since greens are, in addition to being where a clean ball can have the most benefit, pretty much the only place you’re actually allowed to lift and clean your ball.  Depending on how well the ball washer is anchored to the ground you might be able to yank it out and take it with you, but a better idea might be to get yourself a Ball Brite, which is designed to travel much more easily.  Whether you leave it clipped to your bag, or take it with you on to the green, it’s more sanitary, and more versatile than the on course cleaner, and much more effective than a towel.

I played several rounds with the Ball Brite and have found it to be extremely effective at removing the dirt and grass that collects on your ball during the average round, but to see what the Ball Brite is really capable off, I pulled a fairly nasty looking brown ball out a swamp and popped it into the pouch.

When it when in the ball was so completely caked with mud and nasty swamp stuff that I wasn’t able to determine what brand it was.  When it came out, however; it was almost completely clean (some really stubborn grime remained in a couple of the dimples), and to my delight, I had myself an perfectly playable Pro V1.

In truth, the Ball Brite probably isn’t designed to recondition found golf balls, but given how well it performed that task, your average cleaning job shouldn’t be an issue at all.

This is what my ball looked like before going into the Ball Brite. While not completely caked with mud, it's fairly representative of why my average dirty ball looks like.

The same ball after about 10 seconds in the Ball Brite. The good news is the ball is clean. The bad news is that I just discovered it's scuffed (not Ball Brite's fault - no doubt it happened on the preceeding wedge shot).

Minor Gripes

None.  How’s that.  I can’t find the slightest thing to complain about with the Ball Brite.  Assuming you follow the instructions, it won’t leak, it will clean the gunk of your golf ball, and oddly enough, the ball comes out dry.  What can I say; the Ball Brite works 100% as advertised.

Final Thoughts

For under $20 ($16.95 is the current price), unless you really like dirty balls (sorry…), I can’t think of any reason why you shouldn’t treat yourself to a Ball Brite.  I’ve carried mine with me over the last four rounds of golf I’ve played, and it’s become one of my favorite, must-carry, on course accessories, and a worthy addition to any golf bag.

As I said at the beginning of this article, I wasn’t overly excited about trying out a clip-on golf ball cleaning pouch, but damned if I don’t love the thing.  Apart from everything else I’ve said about the Ball Brite, the absolute bottom line is you won’t find me playing golf without it.

Inexpensive, simply to use, and extremely good at what it does; There simply is no better way to clean your golf ball on the course.

The Ball Brite is available in Platinum, Gold, Bronze, and for the ladies, Pink.

Buy your Ball Brite now

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