Touching up golf ball scuff marks?

[Maverick]

The Srixon Soft Feel is a very under-rated ball at a great price.

[cruzthepug]

Originally Posted by Maverick

The Srixon Soft Feel is a very under-rated ball at a great price.

I wasn't trying to imply that it was a bad ball, one of the guys in my weekend group plays that ball. Just saying that any ball under $20 a dozen, your time would be worth more than what a new ball cost.

[mchepp]

Originally Posted by Jimbo Slice

I found this ball in the bushes. Try that pen out on this one lol.  Fixing up balls sounds crazy to me though. Hit em how they are, or don't use them at all.

Originally Posted by Maverick

Perhaps it's the sign of the economy, but I was going through my "used" golf balls (i.e. scuff marks, etc.) and was considering touching them up and repainting them.  I play with a Srixon Soft Feel and as an experiment took some fine grade sand paper and swiped away at a scuff mark.  It easily came off but left a raw, dull, spot where the scuff mark was, obviously.  Now, I am looking into buying a paint pen (probably at your art store) and going over this area in white.

I guess if I wanted to get real fancy would be to spray a clear seal over it.  Krylon has a paint called Krylon Fusion which is made for plastics, but I don't think I'll need a spray can and I don't want to paint the whole ball either.  As soon as I start I'll post some pictures.  But curious, has anyone tried this?

So a couple things at work here. First, the cover of the ball, the urethane cover that they tell you about is that yellowish color that you see on the ball. After a period of time urethane will yellow. Golf ball companies know this, so they paint the ball white. Normally what peels off during a wedge shot or a bounce off the cart path is that white paint. So the cover of the ball is still very much intact, but the paint has been damaged a little. The paint does not affect the ball flight.

The urethane cover is super hard, it is also used in bowling balls, so it is rarely damaged, but because we golfers would not want a ball like Jimbo showed here they put the paint on it.

So don't worry about scuffs, they are likely not affecting the ball flight.

[Golfnjo]

Just a thought.. Years ago I played with a guy who was playing a ball with a cut in it and he was even par through 7.

I don't think a small scuff hurts the average golfer.

[Mac62]

I play them as they are with minor scuffs, doesn't bother me a bit.  If they get any worse than that, I wouldn't waste my time and effort touching them up, I'd toss them and pull a new one out of the bag.  Spray paint would probably last about until the first time the ball was hit, it's nowhere near as durable as the finish applied to the balls at the factory.  As one of my golf buddies says when a ball gets damaged or lost, "That's why we buy 'em by the dozen!".