I tested 5 golf gadgets so you don't have to. Four were a waste of money.
Eleven weeks, thirty-odd rounds and a boot full of plastic. Here is what actually earned its place in the bag, and what went straight in the bin.
Every golfer I know has a drawer. Not a bag, a drawer. The divot tool that snapped, the alignment sticks nobody uses, the ball retriever that was funny for a week. That drawer.
I spent eleven weeks working out which of these actually deserves better than that drawer. I bought all five myself, at full price, and used each one for at least six rounds in genuinely miserable British autumn conditions. Wet turf, heavy sand, the lot.
Four of them are going in the drawer. One of them has not left my bag since week two, and at this point I would be annoyed if I lost it. Here they are, worst to best.
The electric ball washer
A battery-powered tub that spins your ball against some bristles. It works, in the narrow sense that the ball comes out cleaner than it went in. The problem is that every course I play already has a ball washer on the tee, for free, and a wet towel does the same job in two seconds.
It also needs water in it. So you are carrying a small tub of dirty water around a golf course in the same bag as your waterproofs.
Good
- Genuinely cleans a ball
- Cheap enough
Bad
- Solves a problem that is already solved
- Needs filling with water
- Bulky for what it does
The foaming club-cleaner kit
A spray bottle of foam and a stiff brush. To be fair to it, this does get grooves properly clean, and if you are the sort of person who cleans their irons at the kitchen sink on a Sunday evening, you will like it.
On the course it is useless. You are not standing on the 14th fairway foaming up a seven iron while three people wait behind you. It is a garage product being sold as a golf product.
Good
- Actually cleans grooves
- Fine for post-round at home
Bad
- Cannot be used mid-round
- Wet, messy, needs a cloth
- Runs out and needs replacing
The retractable brush and towel combo
The default. Nearly every bag in the car park has one clipped to it, mine included for about fifteen years. It is cheap and it is always there, which counts for something.
But it is only any use on dry dirt. The moment the mud is wet, and in this country it usually is, the brush smears it deeper into the grooves and the towel just moves it from the club to the towel to your trousers. By the ninth hole the towel is a liability.
Good
- Cheap and always attached
- Fine on dry days
Bad
- Smears wet mud rather than removing it
- Towel gets filthy by mid-round
- Does nothing for shoes or the cart
The unbranded jet blower from Amazon
Now we are getting somewhere. The idea is right: blast the dirt off with air instead of smearing it about with fabric. There are a dozen of these on Amazon under names that change every few months, all clearly out of the same factory.
The one I bought worked, for a while. It is a general-purpose air duster aimed at golfers. Nothing about it is designed for a golf bag. Mine is a fat cylinder with a loop on the end and no way to attach it to anything. The nozzle is wide and vague. And after six rounds the battery was noticeably weaker than out of the box.
Good
- The right idea, executed cheaply
- Genuinely removes dry dirt
Bad
- Not designed for a golf bag
- Wide nozzle lacks precision
- Battery faded quickly in testing
- No brand, no warranty worth having
And the one that has not left my bag
I did not expect the winner to be this clear. Usually the golf-specific version of something is the same product at twice the price with a logo on it. Not this time.
Air Caddy Pro 2.0
Same principle as the Amazon blower, completely different object. 129 MPH of directed air, three speeds, and crucially a shape that lives in the side pocket of a golf bag rather than fighting it. It weighs 470g, which is to say you stop noticing it is in there.
What sold me was the car, not the clubs. By week four I was using it on the footwells as much as my shoes. Sand that had been in there since April, gone.
The battery claim is 90 minutes and that matches what I got. Each clean takes about three seconds, so a charge lasts an absurd number of rounds. Twenty-two rounds in, it works exactly as it did on day one.
Good
- Clears mud, dry sand and grass in seconds
- Fits the bag pocket and stays there
- Battery holds up under real use
- As useful on the car as on the clubs
- 30-day returns if you disagree
Air Caddy told us they sold out of the Pro 2.0 twice in 2025. At the time of writing there were under 200 units left on the current run.
So what should you actually buy?
If you already own a brush and towel, keep it, it costs nothing to leave clipped on. Do not buy the ball washer or the foam kit. If you want the air-blower idea, the unbranded one will work for a season and then annoy you.
And if you are buying a gift for a golfer rather than for yourself, this is a straightforward recommendation. It is visible, it is unusual, and it is the sort of thing people want but never get round to ordering.
Tom Hargreaves, Equipment Editor
Tom Hargreaves has tested golf equipment for eleven years and plays off nine. He buys everything he reviews at full price. The ranking is his.