The Epsom salt test for golf ball quality goes back a ways. There’s a 17-year-old video on YouTube where Ralph Maltby explains the process but that’s hardly its origin. The test itself likely dates back to balata.
It’s old-school, if not old-world, stuff.
But as is so often the case these days, Bryson DeChambeau recently reignited the Epsom salt conversation and, as a result, a string of posts has popped up. One I saw showed three TaylorMade balls floating in Epsom salt with the poster asking Bryson to weigh in on whether the balls were any good.
FFS, Bryson. See what you did?
It’s worth a passing mention that Bryson is now a Titleist Left Dash player.
Contracts were attached for both brands so I’m going to go ahead and float the idea that perhaps there’s a bit more than a salt test goes into what golf balls DeChambeau plays.
Anyway, given the renewed attention, we decided to dig in, kick some tires and see if maybe you should be floating your balls in Epsom salt.
How the Epsom salt test works (in theory)
Epsom salt allows balls to bob along the surface. Without it, they sink (but you knew that).
The test itself works like this: By mixing Epsom salt and water, you create a viscous solution. Instead of sinking like your last approach shot over water, the Epsom salt mixture allows the golf ball to bob along the surface.
From there, you place a Sharpie mark on the top of the ball to create a reference point. Once you’ve done that, give the ball a little flippy-tappy (this is highly technical stuff) to get the ball spinning in the solution.
If the previously identified and marked location on the ball returns to the original location quickly, then the ball is, in theory, imbalanced. This is bad because an imbalanced ball can fly offline when struck with a golf club (the more speed, the more offline it’s likely to fly) or roll offline on the putting green.
If the ball doesn’t return quickly to its original location or returns to a different spot entirely, it is balanced.
Does this actually work?
Bryson believes it works but we really should discuss the inarguable realities of why the Epsom salt test is problematic.
The result of the test is influenced, if not entirely dependent, on the ratio of Epsom salt to water. That is to say, if you expect a repeatable result from one day to the next, then your recipe needs to be precise every time you do the test. And, no, you can’t just mix once and leave it. Evaporation will get you.
There’s actual science at play here and the unintended consequence is that environmental conditions, temperature, humidity, altitude – your basic barometric pressure stuff – will also influence the result.
Even if your base mixture is consistent, if it’s not adjusted to compensate for changing conditions, your results will still be inconsistent.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you I put an exhaustive amount of research into this but, with a cursory check, I was unable to find any clear guidelines for adjusting the Epsom salt golf ball test to account for changes in environmental conditions.
In addition to the mixture itself, the speed at which a ball returns to its original point will be heavily influenced by (and try to stay with me because, again, this is highly technical) how hard you flick it.
It’s so obvious that I feel stupid saying it, but the repeatability and subsequent reliability of your Epsom salt test will be heavily influenced by the consistency with which you are able to flick or roll a floating golf ball.
Finally, since we’re basing the good/bad determination on the speed at which the dot returns to its original position, we need to define fast and slow. I haven’t seen anyone put a number on that and it’s by no small measure a subjective determination. And, to bring us back full circle, if your mix isn’t consistent, one day’s slow could be another’s fast.
Bryson’s fast might be your slow.
The point is that, under the best of conditions, the Epsom salt test, while loads of fun, is problematic.
With all of that said, I suppose you could do a year’s worth of balls at a time and make a reasonable evaluation as to which ones return to the original spot a bit too quickly. Even then, there are no assurances.
What do the experts think?
To get a handle on where the industry stands, I reached out to a few golf ball manufacturers to get their take.
One dismissed it out of hand.
A second told us the salt test is unreliable and isn’t needed with the quality control tools and procedures they have in place.
To my surprise, a third company had done some testing recently. I’ll spare you the suspense. Its take is that the test has little value.
To arrive at that conclusion, it started by asking Tour players to run the Epsom salt test. It took any balls those players identified as bad and retested them with more advanced methodologies before running them through performance testing.
They were unable to find any significant performance detriment and most of the balls passed all of their tests.
Most. Yes, we’ll come back to that.
In another test, weight was added to the outside of the golf ball to create an imbalance that was even more dramatic than you would expect from a ball with a layer concentricity issue or that is out of round.
Even in those extreme cases, the results of the Epsom salt test were inconsistent. Sometimes the expected result was returned; sometimes it wasn’t.
To summarize the findings, sometimes the Epsom salt test identified bad balls. Sometimes it failed to identify bad balls and sometimes it identified perfectly good balls as bad.
That last one isn’t problematic if you’re Bryson, but if you’re paying for golf balls, you can see where this might get expensive.
My two cents
Manufacturers will tell you that the QC checks they have in place are ultimately more reliable than a salt test. I’m going to tell you that’s almost certainly true. It’s also true that nobody is perfect and sometimes bad balls escape the factory.
What we’ve learned through our Ball Lab is that golf ball quality begins and ends at the factory level. Good factories make fewer bad balls so, ultimately, starting with a high-quality brand (and factory) is your best protection against bad golf balls.
But, sure, if you want to try the Epsom salt test, go for it.
I’m going to tell you it’s a waste of time and if the unreliability of the test causes you to start tossing perfectly good golf balls, it’ll be a waste of money as well.
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