Lake balls brand by brand in the UK: club ponds, Pearl grades and what a dozen costs

Every club with a pond has a second crop each autumn. The balls that went in over the summer come out graded, washed and boxed, and by October the shelves carry Pearl and Grade A dozens of Pro V1, TP5, Chrome Soft, Z-Star and the rest. They are not the same buy: some boxes mix three generations under one name, and grades vary more than the labels suggest. Here they are brand by brand, with manufacturer specifications, research on time underwater, UK prices from October 2026 and what golfers report. Nobody at Panxis Golf has hit any of these balls.

For the basics (rewashed versus refurbished, how grades work), start with our guide to lake balls in the UK.

Does a spell in the lake ruin a ball?

Less than the old wisdom suggests. The older figures come from a Golf Digest test of September 1996, summarised in US Patent 5,823,891 (1998). With a robot swinging a driver at 93.7 mph, a three-piece ball lost 6 yards of carry after eight days in water, 12 yards after three months and 15 yards after six. A two-piece ball was 9.1 yards down after three months. Those were mid-1990s balls.

The current reference is a peer-reviewed paper by Thomas Raffel and Patrick Long of Oakland University in Michigan, published in the International Journal of Golf Science in September 2023. They sank 2016 Titleist Pro V1s in course ponds for up to twelve months, then had a robot at Golf Labs in San Diego hit them alongside dry balls. Neither total distance nor dispersion differed significantly, even after a year, but the covers yellowed steadily. Their reading: a top-grade urethane ball with little yellowing has probably spent under a year underwater. Golf.com noted in March 2024 that a ball-diving company helped fund it.

That is one model. In the same Golf.com piece, Titleist said all ball materials absorb moisture at different rates and that a ball you did not see go in has a high probability of not performing as designed. The USGA’s John Spitzer said a modern ball with an intact water-resistant coat should not lose significant performance for one to two years.

Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x: read the dimple count

The 2025 Pro V1 is a three-piece ball with a high-gradient core, a high-flex casing layer, a cast urethane elastomer cover and 388 dimples; the Pro V1x is a four-piece ball with a dual core and 348 dimples. In Britain the Pro V1 went on sale on 13 January 2025 at an RRP of £52 a dozen. See our Pro V1 page.

The catch: the UK listing for a Pearl dozen of Pro V1s describes a 392-dimple ball, which is an earlier design, and the Grade A bags of fifty say outright that they contain various models. Titleist brought out new generations in 2021, 2023 and 2025. A Pro V1 lake ball is whichever Pro V1 landed in the pond, and the box will not say which. For a clean white ball, the generation mix matters more than the water.

Refinished balls are stripped, repainted and restamped. A MyGolfSpy lab comparison found a refinished Pro V1 13 yards shorter than a new 2021 Pro V1 at 115 mph of driver speed, 7.5 yards shorter at 100 mph and 6 yards shorter at 85 mph. In the United States, the 2003 Federal Circuit ruling in Nitro Leisure Products v. Acushnet let such balls be sold under the original marks if labelled as used and refurbished. American law, but the lesson travels: read the box for “refinished” before assuming Titleist made and checked the ball.

TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x: covers that show their history

Both are five-layer cast urethane balls. For the February 2026 generation, TaylorMade cites an ultra-thin cover, its largest Tour core yet in the TP5, new mantle materials in the TP5x and a more even paint process. The TP5x is the faster, lower-spinning of the pair.

No published immersion study covers the TP5. The talk among golfers is about wedge marks: forum threads on earlier TP5x generations describe scuffs appearing quickly, and a scuffed ball drops a grade. UK Pearl dozens of TP5 and TP5x cost the same, and the Grade A bag of fifty mixes the two, so check which you are getting.

Callaway Chrome Soft: one name, many vintages

Callaway’s 2026 Chrome family went on sale on 30 January 2026. Golf Digest reported four-layer Chrome Tour and Tour X balls and a three-layer Chrome Soft, all urethane, with a mantle Callaway says is about 16 per cent stiffer.

The name has run for years, so a recovered dozen can span several vintages. Golfers also report that the soft cover scuffs easily, especially off wet grass, so some balls were marked before they reached the water. UK buyers can choose a Pearl lake ball, a Pearl rewashed ball and a refinished one, all within £6 of each other in October.

Srixon Z-Star: when yellow means nothing, or everything

The 2025 Z-Star range, launched on 24 January 2025, has an extra-thin urethane cover made partly from biomass, a Spin Skin+ coating for approach spin and a FastLayer DG Core 2.0 that grades from soft at the centre to firmer outside. Srixon lists the Z-Star XV as a three-piece ball with 338 dimples. The UK lake ball listing describes a 344-dimple pattern: older stock again.

Yellowing is the marker the 2023 study tied to time underwater, yet forum threads describe Srixon covers turning yellowish after a few rounds, with seams showing. A slightly yellow Z-Star may simply have been played, or may have sat in a pond for a long time. The UK Pearl dozen also mixes XV and X.

Bridgestone: the Tour B is hard to find

The 2024 Tour B X was a three-piece urethane ball with Reactiv iQ; Golf.com reports that the 2026 Tour B family adds a Kevlar mantle. With four models per generation, a “Tour B” lake ball means little until you know the letter.

In October 2026, the UK retailer used here listed no recovered Tour B dozen; its only Bridgestone dozen was a Pearl box of the older B330 models, reduced to £14.95 from £29.95. A discounted new box of the previous generation may be the realistic alternative.

Two-piece balls: Titleist Velocity and Callaway Supersoft

The current Velocity is a two-piece ball with a NaZ+ cover and 350 dimples; the Supersoft, also two-piece, has what Callaway calls a Hybrid Cover. Do they cope with water better? Nothing recent says so: the 1996 two-piece ball lost less carry, but both 1996 balls were old designs, and the 2023 paper notes that older ionomer and balata covers resisted water less well than modern urethane over an ionomer casing. The UK Velocity lake ball listing still mentions a NaZ2 cover and LSX core, so older stock once more.

What a UK dozen cost in October 2026

Prices read in October 2026 at a large UK online golf retailer. Pearl is described as virtually indistinguishable from new; Grade A has narrowly failed Pearl and shows minor signs of play. For bags of fifty, the dozen price is calculated from the bag price.

Model	Grade and pack	Price
Titleist Pro V1	Pearl, 12 balls	£32.95
Titleist Pro V1	Pearl, rewashed, 12 balls	£24.95
Titleist Pro V1	Grade A, 50 balls, mixed models	£71.95 (about £17.27 a dozen)
Titleist Pro V1x	Pearl, 12 balls	£31.95
Titleist Pro V1x	Grade A, rewashed, 12 balls	£27.95
Titleist Pro V1x	Grade A, 50 balls	£64.95 (about £15.59 a dozen)
TaylorMade TP5 or TP5x	Pearl, 12 balls	£29.95
TaylorMade TP5	Pearl, rewashed, 12 balls	£22.95
TaylorMade TP5	Refinished, 12 balls	£19.95
TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x	Grade A, 50 balls	£64.95 (about £15.59 a dozen)
Callaway Chrome Soft	Pearl, white, 12 balls	£25.95
Callaway Chrome Soft	Pearl, rewashed, 12 balls	£24.95
Callaway Chrome Soft	Refinished (AA), 12 balls	£19.95
Srixon Z-Star XV or X	Pearl, 12 balls	£22.95
Bridgestone B330 models	Pearl, white, 12 balls	£14.95
Titleist Velocity	Pearl, 12 balls	£16.95
Callaway Supersoft	Pearl, white, 12 balls	£17.95

A Pearl Pro V1 dozen at £32.95 is about £2.75 a ball, against £52 RRP for a new 2025 box. Rewashed Pearl Pro V1s from another supply line were £8 cheaper on the same site, so “Pearl” is not one fixed standard. The Grade A bag of fifty brings a Pro V1 to roughly £1.44 a ball, with mixed models and play marks: fine for winter, less so for a medal.

What golfers are saying

From customer reviews and the Golf Monthly and GolfWRX forums.

In favour:

• The best boxes really do look new. Buyers of Pearl Pro V1s and Z-Stars describe balls they could not tell apart from a fresh sleeve, and forum regulars report years of lake balls without noticing a difference.
• Grade A is enough for an ordinary club round. Pearl is described as near perfect and Grade A as fine for everyday golf, which is what most people buy a dozen for.
• Problems get sorted. Where a bag arrived below its stated grade, reviewers describe the retailer putting it right.

Against:

• Pearl that is not Pearl. Complaints about discoloured balls, scuffs and previous owners’ pen marks in boxes sold as the top grade.
• Bags that slip a grade or two. A fifty-ball Grade A order that turned out mostly Grade B and C, and corporate logo balls mixed into premium bags.
• No way of knowing how long a ball was down there. Sceptics argue time underwater cannot be read from outside and must tell eventually.
• New budget balls close the gap. Forum threads point out that new two-piece dozens on offer cost about the same as premium lake balls, without the guesswork.

Where UK golfers find lake balls: club ponds, recovery firms and the winter bag

Your own pro shop. Clubs often have their water cleared by specialist recovery firms; one firm working across southern England and Wales offers clubs either cash per ball recovered or balls for the pro shop to sell. A box on your own club’s counter probably holds balls that went in this season, the freshest you will find. Ask the pro when the ponds were last cleared.

Whose balls they are. English law treats them as the club’s. In R v Rostron and Collinson, two divers caught at night in a club pond near Leicester with 1,158 balls were convicted of theft at Leicester Crown Court in April 2002, and the Court of Appeal upheld the convictions: a lost ball is treated as surrendered to the club.

The winter bag. The British season runs roughly March to October; winter means temporary greens, fairway mats and balls lost in wet leaves. That is where a Grade A bag of fifty earns its keep. Keep a Pearl dozen of one model and generation for summer medals, so your 50-yard pitch behaves the same in May as in September, and check each box for yellowing, logos and mixed sidestamps.

Competition rules. Under The R&A’s Model Local Rule G-3, a committee can require every ball used to appear on the current List of Conforming Golf Balls, maintained by The R&A and the USGA. Model Local Rule G-4, the One Ball Rule, goes further: each individual listing counts as a different ball, and different colours with identical markings count as different balls too. The R&A recommends it only for professional and elite amateur competitions: rare at club level, but a mixed-generation bag of Pro V1s would fail it.

How this page was put together

A presentation of products and of public opinion, not a test: nobody at Panxis Golf hit these balls. Specifications come from Titleist, TaylorMade, Callaway, Srixon and Bridgestone announcements and product pages, some as reported by Golf.com, Golf Digest and Golfalot (UK price and on-sale date of the 2025 Pro V1).

Recovered-ball prices were read at GolfOnline (golfonline.co.uk) in October 2026, in pounds sterling, with the grade definitions and product descriptions cited above. The immersion research is credited to Golf Digest (1996, as summarised in US Patent 5,823,891), to Raffel and Long in the International Journal of Golf Science (2023), and to Golf.com (2024) for the Titleist and USGA statements. MyGolfSpy’s refinished-ball comparison used Reload refinished Pro V1s. The American legal background comes from the Federal Circuit opinion in Nitro Leisure Products v. Acushnet (2003); the English case is R v Rostron and Collinson, as summarised by the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association (lccsa.org.uk). Recovery terms come from a UK lake maintenance company’s website, competition rules from The R&A’s Model Local Rules.

What golfers say was read in customer reviews on golfonline.co.uk and in threads on the Golf Monthly and GolfWRX forums; nobody is quoted by name, nothing is counted, and no impression is presented as a statistic. There is no commercial link on this page, no affiliate arrangement and no commission of any kind. If content on this site is ever paid for by a brand, it will carry an advertising notice at the top of the page, before the first line.