Best Golf Towels: Three Things That Matter, Four Picks

A golf towel is a rectangle of fabric that costs less than a sleeve of balls, and the honest position is that most of them are fine. There are three variables worth thinking about, one of which is a genuine structural difference and two of which are preferences. Everything else written about this category is filling space.

The three variables

Weave. Microfibre comes plush or waffled. A plush face has a dense flat nap that holds a lot of water and wipes a surface clean. A waffle face has raised squares with recesses between them, which reach into a groove rather than skating over it and which dry faster. Plush holds more water, waffle cleans better. That is the entire argument.

Attachment. Clip, magnet, slit, grommet or nothing. A clip goes on a bag ring, a magnet goes on a trolley frame or a cart rail, a centre slit drops over the clubs inside the bag, and a towel with none of those gets folded over a strap and left on the fifteenth tee. Whichever you pick, pick one, because the towels that go missing are the ones with no way of staying put.

Water. Almost every golf towel is one layer, which means the moment you wet part of it to clean a clubface, you have also lost your dry towel. One design on this page fixes that with a waterproof membrane between two faces. Everything else is solved by carrying two towels, which works perfectly and costs less.

Pick	Best for	Weave	Size	Attachment	Wet and dry	Price
Titleist StaDry Performance Towel	The only towel here that solves the actual problem	Waterproof StaDry outer over an absorbent terry inner, with a membrane between	43 cm by 43 cm	Metal clip	Yes, this is the whole design	Around £35 at UK retail, against a £40 RRP
PING Tour Golf Towel	Size, and nothing else needing to be clever	Microfibre waffle	100 cm by 43 cm unfolded, or 39 in by 17 in	Centre slit that hangs over the clubs, no clip	Single layer, so no	Around £22 to £27
adidas Magnetic Microfiber Players Cart Towel	Grooves, and never losing the towel	Waffle weave microfibre, 100% recycled polyester	16 in by 30 in	Integrated magnet, plus a hanging loop for a bag ring	Single layer, so no	Around £24 to £25
Callaway Trifold Towel	Spending the least and being fine	Microfibre, described by Callaway as multi textured across the panels	16 in by 21 in	Quick snap attachment	Single layer, so no	Around £17 to £19

That is the category. What follows is four towels that sit at different points on those three variables, and then the small number of things that are genuinely worth knowing about using and washing them.

One pattern worth naming before the picks. At British retail the waffle face has quietly become the default rather than the specialist option: two of these four are explicitly waffle weave, a third is sold as multi textured, and the plush towel is now the harder one to find. If you have read older advice treating waffle as an upgrade, that is no longer how the shelves are stocked.

Titleist StaDry Performance Towel: the one doing something different

The Titleist StaDry Performance Towel is a waterproof StaDry outer bonded over an absorbent terry inner with a membrane between them. You soak the inside, the outside stays dry, and one towel now does the whole job: wet to lift dirt off a face, dry to finish it.

The version of that which matters more is the reverse. In rain, everything you own is already wet, and the thing you cannot fix is a wet grip. This towel is cut to drape over the clubs in the bag with the waterproof side out, so it is not merely drying grips after the fact, it is stopping them getting wet in the first place. That is not a marginal convenience, because a club turning in your hands at impact is an open face and a lost shot.

The terry face carries a rough club patch, which is the other genuinely useful thing about it. Wiping does not shift dried mud out of a groove and a patch of coarser fabric does.

The trades are real. It is 43 cm square, which is smaller than the towel most golfers picture and the smallest here once the PING is unfolded. Two layers and a membrane take a long time to dry at home, and a two layer towel left balled up in a bag for a week will smell like one. And at around thirty five pounds it is ten pounds clear of anything else on this page.

PING Tour Golf Towel: big, and the same shape as a caddie towel

The PING Tour Golf Towel is the plain answer done properly. It is 100 cm by 43 cm of microfibre waffle in 100 per cent polyester, with a centre slit so it hangs over the clubs in the bag, and its whole argument is that it is bigger and better made than the towel you currently own.

Size is underrated in this category. A towel you can fold in half and still cover a clubface is a towel that gives you four clean surfaces instead of one, which is the practical difference between a towel that lasts a round and one that is filthy by the sixth. At 39 inches long this is the only towel here with that much slack in it.

The centre slit is the whole attachment story. There is no clip and no magnet, so it lives inside the bag draped over the irons, which is exactly what caddie towels do and is either the neatest solution on this page or an irritation every time you pull a club, depending on how tidy your bag is. If you want it hanging on the outside, you are folding it over a strap.

adidas Magnetic Microfiber Players Cart Towel: waffle, and it stays put

The adidas Magnetic Microfiber Players Cart Towel is 16 by 30 inches of waffle weave microfibre in 100 per cent recycled polyester, held on by an integrated magnet, with a hanging loop as well for anyone carrying.

Waffle is the right face for cleaning. A groove is a channel, and a flat nap passes over the top of it while a raised waffle square presses into it. If your wedges come out of the bag with last week's mud still in the grooves, this is the specification that changes it.

The magnet is the thing to check before buying. It attaches to a trolley frame, a cart rail or anything ferrous, which is better than a clip in every situation where a metal bar exists and does nothing at all in every situation where one does not. Look at whether you push, ride or carry before deciding, because if you carry you are paying for a feature you will never use and using the loop like everyone else.

Callaway Trifold Towel: the default

The Callaway Trifold Towel is 16 by 21 inches of microfibre, folded into three panels, with a quick snap attachment. Callaway describe the surface as multi textured, which is a marketing phrase rather than a weave specification, and nothing else about it is remarkable or wrong.

The tri-fold shape is doing more work than it looks. Three panels means three surfaces, so you can wet one and keep two dry without owning a membrane, and folded up it disappears into a bag pocket instead of flapping about on a strap.

It is also the cheapest towel here by a clear five pounds, which matters more than any specification on this page, because the correct amount to spend on a golf towel is usually the smallest amount that gets you an attachment and a published size.

Two towels beats one clever towel, usually

The strongest argument in this category is the cheapest one. Carry two towels. One lives clipped to the outside of the bag and gets wet. The other lives inside the bag, never comes out in the rain, and exists solely to dry your hands and your grips.

The sums support it in Britain. Plain tri-fold towels from the recognised golf brands start around seven to nine pounds, so two of them together cost about half what the wet and dry towel does. That setup does everything a two layer towel does, and it has the advantage that when a towel gets genuinely filthy you replace half of your system rather than all of it. The case for the clever towel is that it is one thing to carry rather than two, it cannot be got the wrong way round in a hurry, and it goes over the clubs as a hood, which two separate towels cannot.

Washing, and the one mistake that ruins a microfibre towel

Microfibre works because the fibres are split into a very large number of very fine strands, which is what gives it the surface area to lift and hold water and dirt. Fabric softener coats those strands. A softened microfibre towel stops absorbing and starts smearing, and it does not come back.

The rules are short. Wash it hot with detergent and no softener, do not put it in with anything that sheds lint such as cotton towels, and either tumble dry it low or hang it. High heat can melt the fibres, which does the same permanent damage as softener by a different route.

The StaDry is the exception on this page, because its inner face is terry rather than microfibre and its outer face is a waterproof laminate. Softener matters less to it and heat matters more, so hang that one rather than tumbling it.

The other half of towel care is drying it. A wet towel left balled in a bag pocket in a warm car is a mould culture by Wednesday. Take it out with the shoes. It is the same habit and the same reason.

What a towel is actually for

Three jobs, in descending order of how much they affect your score.

Drying grips and hands. This is the one that costs shots. A wet grip lets the club turn, and a club that turns arrives with an open face. Everything else on this list is housekeeping by comparison, and it is why the dry half of the towel matters more than the wet half. If your grips are already slick when dry, no towel fixes that and it is a grip replacement question rather than a towel one.

Cleaning clubfaces. Mud and grass in a groove change how a ball comes off a wedge, which is most obvious on short shots where spin is doing real work. Wet the towel, wipe the face, dry it. A waffle face reaches into the groove and a plush face mostly does not.

Cleaning the ball. Legal on the green whenever you mark it, and the least important of the three in practice. A dirty ball rolls slightly differently, but a golfer who cleans the ball on every green and never dries their grips has the priorities backwards.

What to spend

There is no version of this category where spending more improves your golf. What the money buys is convenience, a better groove clean and, at the top, one towel doing the work of two. A ten pound towel and a habit of keeping a dry corner will beat a thirty five pound towel used carelessly.

The towel is one line in a bag setup that matters more collectively than individually, and what to carry in a golf bag covers the rest of it, including the two towel arrangement described above. Where it hangs depends on the bag, and golf bags differ a lot in how many rings and rails they give you.

In actual rain, the towel is the accessory that does the most work and gets the least attention. An umbrella keeps water off the grips in the first place, and playing golf in the rain is mostly the discipline of keeping one thing dry. The other half of the wet grip problem is your hand rather than the club, and a rain glove grips better wet than dry, which is the single most useful piece of kit nobody buys until their third soaking.

One last note on manners. Wiping a wedge on a green, or shaking a soaking towel out next to somebody about to putt, is one of those small things that irritates people out of proportion, and golf etiquette covers the rest of the same category.

Key takeaways

• There are three variables: weave, attachment and whether the towel can be wet and dry at once. Everything else is decoration.
• Waffle weave cleans grooves better. Plush weave holds more water. That is the whole trade, and at British retail waffle is now the default rather than the upgrade.
• The Titleist StaDry is the only towel here doing something two cheap towels could not do, through a waterproof membrane between two faces, and it goes over the clubs as a bag hood in rain.
• Two towels, one wet on the outside of the bag and one dry inside it, is the cheapest complete solution and it works. Two plain ones cost about half what the wet and dry towel does.
• Drying grips is the job that actually costs shots. Cleaning the ball is the one that matters least.
• Never wash a microfibre towel with fabric softener. It coats the fibres, kills the absorbency and does not come back.
• A towel with no clip, magnet, slit or grommet is a towel you will leave on a tee box.
• Rule 14.1c restricts ball cleaning off the green in four specific situations, and the penalty is one stroke.
• All four towels here are stocked properly in Britain, which is a deliberate condition of being on the page rather than a coincidence.

Common questions

What is the best golf towel?

For most golfers, a waffle weave microfibre towel with a magnet or a clip, in the region of 16 by 24 to 16 by 30 inches. The Titleist StaDry Performance Towel is the pick if you want one towel that stays wet on one side and dry on the other, and the Callaway Trifold Towel is the perfectly good default if you do not.

Is waffle or microfibre better for a golf towel?

That is a false choice, because waffle towels are usually microfibre too. The real choice is waffle face against plush face. Waffle reaches into grooves and dries faster. Plush holds more water and feels nicer. Pick based on whether your problem is dirty grooves or wet hands, and note that most of what British golf shops stock now is waffle.

What size golf towel should I buy?

Around 16 by 24 to 16 by 30 inches for a towel that lives on the outside of the bag. Bigger than that gets in the way when you walk, and smaller than that runs out of clean surface by the tenth. Anything you can fold in half and still cover a clubface is enough. Wet and dry towels are the exception and tend to be compact squares, because the membrane makes a large one heavy and slow to dry.

Do I need a wet and dry golf towel?

Only if you play in the rain often. In dry conditions two towels do the same job for less money. In rain, having a guaranteed dry surface for your hands and grips is the difference between playing and enduring, and a two layer towel is the neatest way to guarantee it. The ones that also drape over the clubs as a hood are doing a second job two towels cannot.

Are magnetic golf towels better than clip ones?

They are better if you have something metal to attach to, such as a trolley frame or a cart rail, and useless if you carry. A clip works on any bag ring. Look at what you actually push, carry or ride before choosing, because the attachment is the only part of a golf towel that fails to work at all.

How do I wash a golf towel?

Hot wash with detergent, no fabric softener, and away from anything that sheds lint. Softener coats the split fibres that make microfibre absorbent and the damage is permanent. Tumble low or hang to dry, because high heat can melt the fibres and do the same thing. Anything with a waterproof laminate should be hung rather than tumbled.

Why does my golf towel smell?

Because it went into a bag pocket wet and stayed there. Microfibre holds water well, which is the point, and a warm dark bag is exactly the wrong place to store it. Take the towel out with your shoes after every round and it will not happen. Two layer towels are the worst offenders, because they take the longest to dry.

Should I clean my clubs after every shot?

After every shot from turf or sand, ideally, and it takes two seconds. Mud in a groove changes how the ball comes off the face, which matters most on short shots where spin does real work. Clean the whole set properly with warm water and a brush every few weeks rather than relying on the towel for that.

Can I clean my ball whenever I want?

On the putting green, yes, whenever you mark it. Elsewhere you may clean a lifted ball except when you lifted it to check for damage, to identify it, because it interfered with play, or to see whether relief is available. Cleaning when you should not have costs one stroke.

Are expensive golf towels worth it?

Not for performance, only for convenience and durability. A ten pound microfibre towel dries a grip as well as a thirty five pound one. What the money buys is a better attachment, a published size, a waffle face that cleans grooves properly, or the two layer construction. Those are real and none of them are worth a shot.

How many golf towels should I carry?

Two. One on the outside of the bag that gets wet and does the clubs, one inside the bag that stays dry and does your hands and grips. It is the cheapest upgrade in this category and most golfers arrive at it eventually after one bad afternoon.

How we put this together

This is a buying guide, not a hands-on review. We have not played these products and we are not going to write as though we have. What follows is what the research was actually based on.

• Published manufacturer specifications for each towel, taken from the maker's own listing rather than a retailer's summary.
• The weave and fibre blend as published, since that is what decides whether a towel cleans a groove or just moves dirt around.
• Published dimensions, because a towel that cannot reach from a bag strap to a clubhead is decoration.
• How the towel attaches, and whether the attachment survives a bumpy cart path.
• Whether the towel is built to hold water in one part and stay dry in another, which is the only structural difference in the category.
• Prices recorded as GBP bands read from British listings rather than converted from US list prices, and British availability treated as a condition of being on the page at all, because a towel you have to import is not a towel you will replace.

What we did not do: hit any of these on a launch monitor, measure carry or dispersion ourselves, or take a manufacturer’s performance claim at face value. Where a number appears on this page it is either a published specification or a cited dataset, and it says which. Prices were checked in August 2026 and move constantly. Our editorial policy sets out the rest.