How Do You Clean Rust Off of Golf Clubs?
Removing rust from your golf clubs, and shafts, can be done easily with just a piece of steel wool, and no chemicals.
How To Remove Rust From Your Golf Clubs
As PGA Professional and golf club expert Frank Ganley demonstrates, removing rust from your golf clubs is easy.
- Get them out of the garage. Rust always comes in the garage, and if your clubs are spending too much time in your garage, that means you’re not playing enough golf.
- Forged golf clubs are more likely to rust on the club head than cast clubs, but steel shafts in both types of clubs are susceptible to rust.
- Take a piece of steel wool and lightly brush it along your club, in the direction of the grooves, and the rust will vanish quickly.
Before You Polish Your Clubs
When you see rust on your golf club, you may instantly assume you need to polish it off. Not so fast. The great Bobby Jones, golf’s only Grand Slam winner, never polished his clubs because he felt they performed better with rust on the face. That’s because the rust on the club face gave the club more surface for the ball to compress into.
Rust on Your Steel Shafts
While they may be a reason to leave rust on your club face, you may also notice rust on the shaft of your steel-shafted clubs. There is no benefit to leaving rust on your shafts, and you should use your steel wool to gently polish the rust off your shafts.
Graphite shafts, which are usually found on your woods, hybrids or driving irons, won’t rust.
Removing Rust From Golf Clubs: An Alternative to Steel Wool
Step 1
Fill a bucket with warm (not hot) water mixed with dish washing liquid or liquid soap. Soak the clubs for five minutes or so and then wipe them with a cloth. If the rust is purely on the surface, this may be sufficient to remove it and will not cause any damage to your clubs.
Step 2
Soak the clubs in a few liters of cola (which sort of cola is not important) mixed with a few liters of water. Let them soak for about five minutes, but make sure not to leave them in longer than that. Scrub all of the rusty areas with the water and cola mixture.
- If the rust is in the grooves of the club, a toothbrush is a good alternative to a cloth, as the bristles will reach down to the bottom of the grooves and clean them.
- If the shafts are rusted, soak some towels in the cola solution and wrap them around the shafts. Allow them to soak overnight.
Rinse the clubs thoroughly. Rub them dry with a soft cloth. Set the clubs upright on a towel on the floor.
Step 3
Purchase an acetone mixture or a rust remover from a hardware store. Put the mixture over any rusted areas and brush them clean. Again, a toothbrush will be a good brush to use for this purpose.
Step 4
If the above remedies have not worked, try repeating the application of a rust remover and follow that by rubbing the clubs gently with a fine steel wool. Make sure you only rub the rusted areas and be patient and resist rubbing too firmly.
Step 5
After the rust is removed, polish each club shaft and head by hand with polish and a dry cloth. Work the polish in a circular motion and pay close attention to buffing the shaft. Buff the club head and shaft dry to the desired shine.
Tips & Warnings
If all the above steps fail to remove the rust, take the clubs to your professional or to a specialist golf store and ask them to assess the damage. It may be that you will need to get badly affected clubs repaired or replaced.
If the rust has gone too deep, there may be nothing that can be done. If this is the case and the rust is only on the shafts, then consider getting a pro to re-shaft the clubs, which will be cheaper than buying a new set of clubs. However, more often than not, the rust will only be on the surface and that can be dealt with by cleaning. Avoid getting the club grips wet. This can ruin the grip.