When did the lines of ball performance get blurred?

[gs1184]

I was pondering how ball performance distribution has evolved so much. There was a time when there was a simple concept: there were softer balls that spin more and firmer balls spin less. Higher handicaps played hard non spinning rocks and better players played softer more spin balls.  Now we have balls like the pro v1x that are firm but are high spinning and titleist avx which are soft but spin less. No one really talked about driver backspin many years ago only sidespin. 
 

My guess is when lower compression balls (eg. precept lady) became more mainstream and companies could play with the compression as well as the cover/composition?

Edited June 29, 2023 by gs1184

[MattM97]

There are just more options now, someone that needs less spin may not like a hard ball and someone that needs more spin may not like a soft ball. 

[Socrates]

Things started in the early 1900's with the smaller British Ball.  It's been blurry ever since then.

[gioreeko]

Urethane covers were the game changers. Top flight Strata were the first ones I believe? Basically took a top flight rock distance ball and stuck a softer, high spin cover over it, and the revolution started

[tatertot]

On 6/29/2023 at 9:44 AM, Socrates said:

Things started in the early 1900's with the smaller British Ball.  It's been blurry ever since then.

Probably started before that ... the great woody vs feathery debate ... the ultimate firm vs soft ball battle.

[North Butte]

It used to be (let's say 30 years ago) if you wanted a ball that would spin a lot in the short game and on approach shots you had to settle for a wound Balata ball whose spin would totally kill your distance unless you extremely skilled at managing that spin off, for instance, your driver. You also had to pay $4 apiece for a ball that had a 50/50 chance of being lumpy right out of the box and a 100% chance of being lumpy or damaged after a few holes. 

 

Otherwise, you were stuck with balls that felt like rocks and had so little spin it would drive decent players crazy. There were some in-between soft-cover 2pc balls and Surlyn-covered wound balls that tried to split the difference but without a whole lot of success.

 

Then manufacturers all over the world figured out how to make "best of all worlds" balls with mutipiece construction, urethane covers and basically no compromises. That's the world we're living in today. Unless you are hung up on "soft feel" (like maybe 90% of weekend golfers) you can find a ball with almost any combination of performance characteristics at prices from $1.50 a ball on up. They'll be 10x more durable than the old Tour balls and they'll have performance that any golfer would have told you was absolutely impossible in 1990. Yet here they are. 

 

The only thing that makes it seem more complicated than that is the insane emphasis that so many golfer put on the sound the ball makes when hit with various clubs from putter on up to driver. Almost all the mumbo-jumbo that causes confusion is around "compression" and "feel" and similar things having zero to do with the actual performance of the ball as it is struck by clubs, flies through the air and reacts with the ground upon landing. 

 

If you ignore the compression/feel marketing noise, it's almost impossible NOT to choose a good performing ball by simply trying a few different models and choosing the one that works best. 

Edited June 30, 2023 by North Butte

[Jeff58]

On 6/29/2023 at 6:32 AM, gs1184 said:

I was pondering how ball performance distribution has evolved so much. There was a time when there was a simple concept: there were softer balls that spin more and firmer balls spin less.

Well, at the dawn of the V1 era, as @gioreeko points out, there were surlyn and urethane balls. Tying compression to spin was a concept in its infancy.

 

Something that very few players pay heed to is that the main source of increased distance since the freezing of COR limits is from golf balls, not golf clubs.

 

In the last ten or so years, there have been three significant advances in ball design. The first, dimple optimization, is something many players are aware of. A ball’s construction, materials, and compression mostly influence its launch characteristics. The way a ball actually flies is a function of its dimple pattern and dimensions. The best balls are those that best marry launch and flight, and that is a place where humans are poorly able to tread. Advanced computer optimization programs are the players here.

 

The second is layer-to-layer integration. Basically, Titleist found that the greater the difference in compression (or hardness) between layers, the greater the spin generation. Making this work in an actual model is not trivial, and only (AFAIK) Titleist, Callaway, and TM have facilities that are capable of producing them at he highest level. There are no Far East sources. To some extent, Bridgestone has shut themselves out of this approach due to the cover changes they made in response to issues in previous models.

 

The third is cure ramping. This was first implemented in the third generation Srixon QST, again AFAIK. Srixon holds patents in the area. Generally, in “standard “ balls, you want the hardness/compression to be as consistent as possible through a given layer. Srixon found that if you ramped temperature across the cure process, that you can create effectively an infinite number of layers/compression in a single layer. Prior to the 2021 Titleist V1, their literature espoused the extreme consistency of their cure processes. That’s now gone, as the current models use cure ramping. The big potential looser here is TaylorMade. The theoretical advantage of the TP5 family is obviously that they have five lavers. It costs a bundle to make a five layer ball. Cure ramping pretty much makes anything beyond three layers unnecessary.

[Mrgreen36]

Yeah, tour 90 or 100 balata was much easier choice. 

[lefthack]

It wasn't until we started using radar and other things to measure actual spin that folks even cared about it. What was Ben Hogan's driver spin rate?

[hammergolf]

On 6/29/2023 at 8:32 AM, gs1184 said:

I was pondering how ball performance distribution has evolved so much. There was a time when there was a simple concept: there were softer balls that spin more and firmer balls spin less. Higher handicaps played hard non spinning rocks and better players played softer more spin balls.  Now we have balls like the pro v1x that are firm but are high spinning and titleist avx which are soft but spin less. No one really talked about driver backspin many years ago only sidespin. 
 

My guess is when lower compression balls (eg. precept lady) became more mainstream and companies could play with the compression as well as the cover/composition?

For me, when the technology changed when companies began switching away from soft center/wound balls to solid core balls. There were some early models, the Spalding Tour Edition was the first solid core/soft cover model I remember. I actually played that ball and loved how much it spun. (Even though it was too much spin). Then the Strata was released and was a big improvement. However, they never cracked the distance code at that point. I may be mistaken, but I believe Spalding had the patent on solid core/soft cover design. Then the Nike Tour Accuracy was the next one I remember. It was solid core/urethane cover. Hands down, in my opinion it was the best ball in the market at that time. It was the first ball I remember being noticeably linger. It was a club longer off the irons and ten yards longer off the driver and woods. Then released the Professional and Maxfli released the Revolution which were both solid core/windings/ urethane cover. Both were much better than their previous offerings and longer. Then when Titleist switched to solid core/inner mantle/urethane cover it was like the code had been broken. The ball went like a 2 piece distance ball off the tee, but played with spin off the irons and wedges. It would be great to hear @Snell Golf add to this topic since he was instrumental in the design of the Pro V and later TP Red design. I was living in New Orleans at the time and had a very good friend who was a pro in Hattiesburg, MS who I would visit and play golf with. He was telling about this new golf ball design that was being worked on at The University of Southern Mississippi that rumor said was going to change golf ball design. I took it with a grain of salt, then about a year later the Pro V1 was released. The rest as they say was history. 

[Klubster]

Life was so much more simple when I started playing.  For a premium ball, you basically had Titleist, Spaulding Dot and Maxfli in 90 or 100 compression-then a bunch of cheap balls.  You replaced them after each mishit because they smiled back at you.  

[TNGolfer8]

On 7/2/2023 at 11:11 AM, hammergolf said:

For me, when the technology changed when companies began switching away from soft center/wound balls to solid core balls. There were some early models, the Spalding Tour Edition was the first solid core/soft cover model I remember. I actually played that ball and loved how much it spun. (Even though it was too much spin). Then the Strata was released and was a big improvement. However, they never cracked the distance code at that point. I may be mistaken, but I believe Spalding had the patent on solid core/soft cover design. Then the Nike Tour Accuracy was the next one I remember. It was solid core/urethane cover. Hands down, in my opinion it was the best ball in the market at that time. It was the first ball I remember being noticeably linger. It was a club longer off the irons and ten yards longer off the driver and woods. Then released the Professional and Maxfli released the Revolution which were both solid core/windings/ urethane cover. Both were much better than their previous offerings and longer. Then when Titleist switched to solid core/inner mantle/urethane cover it was like the code had been broken. The ball went like a 2 piece distance ball off the tee, but played with spin off the irons and wedges. It would be great to hear @Snell Golf add to this topic since he was instrumental in the design of the Pro V and later TP Red design. I was living in New Orleans at the time and had a very good friend who was a pro in Hattiesburg, MS who I would visit and play golf with. He was telling about this new golf ball design that was being worked on at The University of Southern Mississippi that rumor said was going to change golf ball design. I took it with a grain of salt, then about a year later the Pro V1 was released. The rest as they say was history. 

This is really interesting, as I had no idea Southern Miss played a part in any research and Development of the Pro V1.  

[Orchardist]

I miss the ball flight of a wound balata ball.  That late climbing apogee was one of the best sights when I was younger.  Post wound ball players would have a real truth serum if they had to play a round with wound balls regards of cover material.

[just_steveu]

I guess it was a blessing and a curse to learn to play with a wound balata and blades... spent time with rockflights and Maxfli DDH's before I decided to drop the coin for better balls. I too miss that ball flight and remember the first time I saw it. I played the MaxFli, Spaulding, 100 compression titelist balata. They were basically the same and the biggest issue was cutting the cover or knocking them out of round. I still have a few that i will take out to the practice green and putt around.

 

When the original Strata came out I loved them but they lasted two or three holes as the grooves on my irons literally peeled\cut strips of cover off. I had switched from blades to perimeter weighted square/U grooves (don't remember which but they were sharp and were not V grooves).

 

ProV's did not feel quite as nice putting as balatas do but were OK - yeah I'm one of THOSE golfers that hates putting rocks and lost a season when I messed up my putting feel trying a putter with a face insert. Over the years I had to tried other balls every spring as it seemed to me that titelist seemed to monkey with the ProV performance characteristics way too frequently. Ya get frustrated when this years ball doesn't behave like the new in sleeve balls in your bag from last September. I bounced between MaxFli, Bridgestone, Nike, Calloway, Srixon, Snell, Kirkland, and titelist. Tried TaylorMade but they never agreed with me.

 

Currently I'm gaming Bridgestone B-XS. I like the feel and performance off my mid & short irons and wedges (all forged blades 7-pw, 52, 56 & 60), get acceptable performance from the log irons and woods, and have feel off the putter. I've played great rounds with various versions of the Pro V but I cannot afford to buy several years supply of a version of ProV's that perform and feel the way i like just to guard against the inevitible performance tweaks. I need a database to keep track of the differences and different markings to know which one i had in my hand.... More hassle than they are worth to me. I want to buy a sleeve\dozen balls and they behave exactly like the old ones....

 

 

 

Hey all you kids - GET OFF MY LAWN! LOL!

 

[RHenderson]

My interesting take on all these golf ball tests.

Seems to me there are 5 major plants that produce golf balls today.

1. Titleist

2. Callaway

3. Taylor Made

4. Bridgestone

5. Foremost

With lots and lots of talk about the recent tests release, but my questions are these, in no particular order.

Sure Titleist is on Top, should not surprise anyone, but Foremost has really good showings the past few test's so they must be doing something right which leaves the questions? where are the other mfg. missing the mark, is it materials, process, recipe, etc. and then my question is who decides the make up of the ball, is it Foremost or the Brand they are building it for? What leads to this thought is Snell balls, seems recently they have switched Urethane Covers due to their producers and it seems to have hurt performance? or some think it has.

 

I find these robotic test's very interesting but have doubt's the results will equate to my game, just to many variables, then they seem to use some sort of scale to adjust for launch angles and other variables so I see the data as tainted or skewed? Am I wrong here. Next thing I've been a long time supporter of on course testing, whether it's clubs or balls I personally like to experience the results or my finding live and in person, which has lead to find what works best for me may not equate or match the results of these big equipment test results to the tee, BUT as a friend and I were discussing yesterday, it does tend to lead some down a rabbit hole or switching to a brand they normally would not play.

 

I personally enjoy the testing part of the game, but have to admit it may cause my game, suffering by doing so. Ultimately I feel like I should land on a set up and stick to it at least for longer periods of time, which leads me to Tour Pro's that are still playing older out of production models, ie clubs, balls, putters etc. and this in itself is a whole nother rabbit hole LOL.

 

Looking forward to your reply's.

Thanks

    

Edited August 31, 2023 by RHenderson
spelling correction

[storm3]

On 8/9/2023 at 4:17 PM, TNGolfer8 said:

This is really interesting, as I had no idea Southern Miss played a part in any research and Development of the Pro V1.  

I don’t think they were related. Dean Snell has mentioned that they were player testing prototypes for what would become the ProV1 when he left Acushnet in 1997 and the ProV1 wasn’t released until late 2000. John Calabria (co-creator of the thermoset casting process with Dean) left Acushnet a year or two before Dean to work at Maxfli resulting in the Revolution lineage (they would eventually reunite when Taylormade acquired Maxfli). 
 

By the time of hammergolf’s story, the paradigm shift was already well under way for every major OEM.

[storm3]

10 hours ago, RHenderson said:

My interesting take on all these golf ball tests.

Seems to me there are 5 major plants that produce golf balls today.

1. Titleist

2. Callaway

3. Taylor Made

4. Bridgestone

5. Foremost

With lots and lots of talk about the recent tests release, but my questions are these, in no particular order.

Sure Titleist is on Top, should not surprise anyone, but Foremost has really good showings the past few test's so they must be doing something right which leaves the questions? where are the other mfg. missing the mark, is it materials, process, recipe, etc. and then my question is who decides the make up of the ball, is it Foremost or the Brand they are building it for? What leads to this thought is Snell balls, seems recently they have switched Urethane Covers due to their producers and it seems to have hurt performance? or some think it has.

    

There are more than 5 companies producing balls in high volumes.

 

The “big 5” OEMs that own their own factories:

-Acushnet (Titleist/Pinnacle/Footjoy/Union Green)

-Bridgestone (Bridgestone/Precept/TourStage)

-Callaway 

-Taylormade (Taylormade/Noodle)

-SRI/Dunlop Sports (Srixon/XXIO/Cleveland)

 

Then there are bigger independent factories that produce for the next tier and DTC brands in addition to some big 5 outsourcing:

-Foremost (Taiwan)

-Launch Technologies (Taiwan)

-Feng Tay (Vietnam)

-SM Parker (China/Vietnam)

 

As for who designs the balls for the brands that use the independent factories, it ranges from examples like Snell who is designing/specifying everything to small DTCs that are simply having their logo slapped on a white label offering (ultimately few DTCs are actually designing anything).