Do old golf balls lose performance?

I just read an interesting article on Flog about performance of new vs old golf balls. New Pro V1's were compared to three levels of wear of older ProV1 balls, which had been bought from an online retailer. More than likely some/most of the old balls had come out of the water.

They tested wedge and driver shots for spin, launch, carry and total distance. The results of the wedge shots surprisingly didn't show much difference except that the more beat up the balls are, the more spin they produced. The worst conditioned balls spun only 90 rpm's more. Launch was 0.4 degree higher for new balls. Driver tests showed a slight progression of spin and decrease in launch for the older balls. 215 more spin and 1.1 degree less launch. Carry and total distance were almost identical in all categories. Maybe extra spin compensated for the loss of launch.

Personally, I don't notice much difference in old balls vs new balls or New Pro V1x vs Top Flight Yellow Gamers. The last big Senior event I played in, I was the only player of the 180 golfers playing a Topflight. I finished 12th and I out drove everyone I was paired with by at least 20 yds!

So don't be so quick to replace that gnarly looking ball, it will perform just as good as a new one. Last year I played 16 straight rounds with the same Gamer until I hit it fat into a pond. It was looking pretty bad by the time I buried it at sea but still flying like a newer one.