diff --git a/pkg/kv/kvserver/replica_tscache.go b/pkg/kv/kvserver/replica_tscache.go
index cdc161f3e5df..614cf938b8cf 100644
--- a/pkg/kv/kvserver/replica_tscache.go
+++ b/pkg/kv/kvserver/replica_tscache.go
@@ -52,7 +52,14 @@ func (r *Replica) addToTSCacheChecked(
 	// directly instead of using the local HLC clock as a proxy for its high
 	// water-mark, but it serves as a good proxy for proper handling of HLC
 	// clock updates and, by extension, observed timestamps.
-	if !ts.Synthetic && st.Now.ToTimestamp().Less(ts) {
+	//
+	// TODO(nvanbenschoten): this is currently disabled because we seem to
+	// regularly hit it on master. Now that we ship a snapshot of the timestamp
+	// cache on lease transfers instead of just the current clock time, the
+	// property this is asserting is no longer quite as important, so we can
+	// disable the check. However, it would still be nice to track down how we
+	// can hit this.
+	if !ts.Synthetic && st.Now.ToTimestamp().Less(ts) && false {
 		log.Fatalf(ctx, "Unsafe timestamp cache update! Cannot add timestamp %s to timestamp "+
 			"cache after evaluating %v (resp=%v; err=%v) with local hlc clock at timestamp %s. "+
 			"Non-synthetic timestamps should always lag the local hlc clock.", ts, ba, br, pErr, st.Now)