New Golf Balls

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Finding the right ball for you is about spin, feel, distance, and price.

Just like golf clubs, golf balls must fit the golfer, and as with clubs, you must match the golf ball that best complements your specific swing and style of play.

Golf balls, although not inexpensive, are affordable enough to allow a degree of experimentation. You should try different brands and types of balls before settling on one.

Distance and Spin
Today’s golf ball is about getting the 2 basic factors of distance and spin correct.

The trajectory (launch angle), provides the distance, and the spin provides better control of the golf ball.

Launch or trajectory angle is determined firstly by the driver, and then next by the golf ball.

If you already drive the ball long and accurate, perhaps the spin and feel of the ball around the green is more important.

Some top golfers will fit the golf ball, from the spin and feel of a ball around the green, back to the driver. Others will go from distance with a driver down to the wedge.

There are tracking devices used by professionals and ball manufacturers that track the flight and launch angle of the ball. The higher the COR of a ball , the higher the velocity this gives, but with a much lower feel to the ball

So what should you be looking for to get more distance through a better launch angle?

If you have, a low hand speed, then a ball that has high spin would give more optimum lift, hence more distance.

Conversely, a. higher hand speed would be better with a low spin.

Of course a downside to the higher spin ball, is that if you hit it incorrectly, then you will also put on the ball more side spin and the ball could go further off to the right or left of centre!

Feel
It is the core that determines the compression and the hardness or softness of the ball. The outer cover will determine the durability and spin.

The old balata balls gave lots of spin and a good feel, but were less good for ball flight, or durability.

The Top-Flite Strata golf ball, introduced in the mid-1990′s, produced the first 3 piece ball.. It merged a high-spinning, soft-feeling Tour Balata type of ball, with the low-spinning, long-flying, and durable Pinnacle or distance ball.

This remarkable three-piece ball, was, indeed, two balls in one: It was a long-flying/low-spinning distance ball off the tee, and a high-spinning control ball off the irons.

They achieved this by adding a soft polyurethane cover on what was virtually a Top-Flite distance ball, and then adding a thin middle or mantle layer that encased the ball’s already large and solid rubber core.

A few years later, balls such as Titleist’s ProVI, Maxfli’s M3 Tour, Callaway’s Rule 35, Nike’s TA2 (both the Long and Spin models), and others, including new balls from Strata, improved on Strata’s original breakthrough, by improving the durability of their urethane outer covers and making them thinner and firmer for added distance.

At the same time, advances in rubber systems allowed ball makers to design cores that were more energetic or “faster,” for even more distance on shots hit with the longer clubs, while maintaining a nice soft feel.

Tour balls today, can provide good distance, durability and spin, but at a price.

What is best for you?
If you have a high hand speed, then a higher compression ball, like a ‘DT’ ball, maybe better.
With a slower hand speed, a lower compression ball like the ‘Maxfli noodle’ would probably suit. (I am not a representative of either golf ball manufacturer).

The manufacturer, today, can make a ball with a large rubber centre that feels soft like the low-compression balls of years past, but flies far with a lot of initial ball speed like the old high-compression balls.

Therefore, it is wise now to read what it says on the box, and try them out. You will be amazed at how different balls react.

Price
Tour golf balls are still the best, but are a high price to pay.

Perhaps a happy medium is the mid-price range, which will provide good spin or distance characteristics, without having to pay through the nose. Plus if you lose those golf balls, then maybe you won’t need to spend as long looking for them.

Be honest with yourself, what is the ideal for you, is it distance or feel, or a happy medium all round.

Good luck in your ball fitting.

Since the beginning of golf, golf ball compression have been widely debated and discussed among golfers. As technology have advanced into the modern age, golf balls have become better than before. Just through technology alone, the evolution of golf ball has wiped out most of the hard core and old Balata wound golf ball out of the market. Today, majority of the golf balls are soft core low compression golf balls. Till then, golf ball compression really mattered but now, it is no longer the case.

Back then, if a 70 was put onto a golf ball, it would be termed as a women’s golf ball. Now, low compression golf balls take up majority of the market. You can have 4 piece compression golf balls like Pro V1x in the mid 90s and TP Red in the mid 80s. Compression numbers cannot be used to determine your golf ball selection anymore.

Golf ball compression can now be generally differentiated into two types. They are the core compression and the overall compression. In general, core compression is normally the main reason for the feel when you hit a driver on the golf ball. The reason is because the club face fully compress the core upon impact and that is what causes the feel on a full swing.

For overall compression, it refers to the amount of deformation undergone to the whole golf ball when it is being subjected to a compressive force. This is typically important in generating the feel, spin and also the energy transfered from club face to golf ball.

Taking a deeper look, golf ball compression cannot be used to determine the feel of the golf ball. Take the Wilson Staff Zip golf ball for example, with a zero compression core, the golf ball feels completely different from that of a Srixon Soft Feel. Both golf balls have a golf ball compression of 55. Hence compression does affect feel but it cannot be used to determine feel today.

In fact, it is used more in the lab to design the golf ball such as C.O.R, sound, spin rates and velocity. It is more of the interaction of the layers that produce and determine your feel than normal golf ball compression.

Let us not look just on the numbers but beyond them to determine which golf ball suits you best. Every single material that makes up the golf ball have it’s own property that will contribute to the energy transfer, spin, feel, velocity, launch angle etc. With the technology nowadays, multi-layered golf balls are used to control the deformation to push the feel, velocity, spin, launch angle and other distance factors into another level. It is indeed quite a revelation in today’s golf.