Just dropped $116 on a three pack of Bridgestone… going to give them a run for the beginning of the season… once I’m through them, it will be them, back to snell or Kirkland.
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I am trying out Snell this year based on recommendations from this forum and price! I went with the “Get Sum” thinking that I’d like the extra distance and durability. I’ve noticed (though it is still early in the year and fairly cold here in Salt Lake City) that the distance and low spin are great with longer clubs, but really seem to have lost my ability to hold greens.
It could be just an anomaly since it is early in the year…but I may need to switch to the MTB Black or something else. Seems like a held greens better with my Srixon Soft Feel last year, but they were only good for a couple of rounds before being pretty dinged up.
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I haven’t played a surlyn ball in some time… but I’d assume with hard greens and cold weather, you aren’t going to get them to stop quickly quite yet… If you need a cheap urethane ball, the Kirkland balls are basically impossible to beat.
They spin too much for me and cost me enough distance that I’m willing to spend the money on nicer balls… Even the Snells are more than double the price of the Kirklands, though… it’s an unreal price point.
I was waiting for the Kirkland 4 piece ($30 for 2 dozen, allegedly) and was planning on buying at least 5 boxes for $150 (10 dozen urethane balls… that’s still insane to me) but got frustrated waiting and I don’t know when they are coming out…
I probably should have just picked up 1 dozen of the Bridgestone, as that will last me a month at least… but I’m impatient and didn’t feel like factoring in the time value of money…
On the Brigestone side, I really like them, know which version I prefer and it was easy to get 3 dozen quickly… I haven’t tried the TP5X this season, but have heard good things…
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I haven’t tried very many golf balls without a urethane cover that I like around the greens. I seem to recall there was a Top Flite Gamer that checked up decently and a Callaway HX Hot Bite (not sure I got the name right). Neither used urethane, but seemed decent. I only use a urethane cover ball now though. My club’s greens are too small and fast not to have a fair amount of check. I know I could practice with a Surlyn covered ball and figure it out eventually, but there are decent urethane cover balls on sale pretty regularly…well at least pre-Covid. I have been using Maxfli Tours lately.
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Yeah, the Maxfli’s are a decent deal at only twice the cost of the Kirkland’s (I’m not being sarcastic here… it’s still SHOCKING to me how much cheaper the Kirkland balls are). I bought two dozen and liked them just fine.
In my opinion there are a couple of categories of Urethane balls:
Kirkland - Huge outlier… I think the quality is pretty good, and the price is unbeatable. I’m really curious to see if the 4 piece balls are any good. The more I talk about them the more I regret not waiting on their release… Oh well.
Snell / Maxfli - I think these are the “value” brands that make sense… They get there different ways, but both started with industry experience and have the chops to produce a competitive golf ball and the resources to sell them at a discount… $25-30 a dozen, and probably the best price to value there is if Coscto didn’t exist.
Vice / Cut / DTC that isn’t Snell: No real R&D or control over manufacturing… they have lower price points and make an OK ball. I haven’t actually played any of these and thus probably shouldn’t bad mouth them, but here we are… I think they are fine. Cheaper than the Snell but it seems like they are a drop in quality. Once again, Costco blows the curve… if you just want cheap urethane golf balls, buy Costco balls.
OEM golf balls: I’m not sure there is ever going to be a ProV2, but it seems like it would come from these guys… They have far greater control over the quality (though that doesn’t mean all their balls are good!) and they are all grouped in price… The 3 for 4 deals and the 3 dozen packs can get you some slight discounts, but these are going to be the most expensive… I think it’s worth testing them occasionally, and I’ve always gotten along well with the Bridgestone balls.
I decided today between spending $90ish on 3 dozen Snell and 116 on 3 dozen Bridgestone… for $26, I figured it was worth it and went with the major OEM… I’m going to give it a number of rounds (hopefully more than 36) and see how I like the balls.
I’m focused on lowering my handicap this season, so spending some extra money on a ball that I think will perform better for me makes sense… i’m chasing any incremental improvement I can find.
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I don’t know much about Kirkland - thank you for all the info. I don’t seem to see any in yellow (easier for me to watch with my bad eyes)…do you know if that is an option?
I did like the Srixon and may go back to their Ionomer cover, but perhaps will try some Urethan too.
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Kirkland does not come in yellow. Sorry!
A number of years ago I signed up to be a Titleist ball tester. In your profile, you list your current ball preference, in my case, Titleist NXT Tour or Bridgestone RX, and they sent you an unmarked sleeve of comparable balls. You had to report your findings with regard to differences in distance, launch height, green stopping, putting softness, etc. This was a very difficult evaluation to do since the variation in my swing was larger than the difference between the balls under test.
I would occasionally have my playing partners hit the same A/B test balls to see if they could determine any difference. Even though they are more consistent players than me, the result was the same – very difficult to tell apart.
I thought Titleist’s purpose for doing this was two fold: primarily as a marketing effort to keep you engaged with their products and secondarily to see if their product changes could be detected.
My take away is that it is extremely difficult to differentiate between any golf balls within category.
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Honest grip on reality! Based on your comment, I’m going to try some of those soft balls. (I’m your age, and don’t get anywhere near 260) Considering the cold weather, I’m hoping that will also help as I really notice the difference in yardage when it gets down to the low 40s. Everyone has to play their OWN game, the pros are fun to watch but I’m not going to try to copy them.
A couple of things, that bear repeating. I guess it was 4 years ago now, I got into a serious car accident and had to not touch a club for 2 years. Prior to the accident, I was a 4.7 hdcp, I was fairly consistent with my driver distance 245-260. Last year my doc cleared me to play and I found I had lost 40-50 yds off my tee balls. Prior to the accident I played ProV1. This year doc gave me full clearance and I was able to begin practice, analyze my swing and see what was going on. I began a process of rebuilding my swing as alot has to do with swing mechanics and timing being way off. It was very difficult to get trackman time because of pandemic shut our trackman room down. Jon sold me a PRGR and I purchased a net this year and recorded my swing and from there began process. I did switch to supersofts by Callaway, the lower compression worked well with my swing speed. Prior to accident my numbers avg 98-101, Ball speeds of like 140 and SF of over 1.40. When I started rebuilding, my swing speed had deteriorated to 84-87, ball speeds of 120ish and distances of 210-218 Max. So there it is. In Feb, I started piecing together my mechanics. I hit 200 balls a day, for 60 days, plus recording, plus upper body exercises targeted at increasing the speed I could unwind from proper position and I could finally start pushing my ass into the ground. All that work has gotten me back to currently 238-247 without pushing the envelope, but I can now swing uncontrolled and get SS of 120. I would break my spine swinging that hard all the time. Also, I have been able to achieve Smash Factors now consistently over 1.42-1.47. It’s just not the ball. It’s dedication. Not digging out of dirt but more burning up the mat. Distance is achieved by proper swing mechanics period. You may not get Dustin Distance but LPGA distances are achievable by us old farts. Get your swing analyzed, practice, and do so with a purpose. Get fitted for a proper shaft and proper length shaft. The driver head matters not IMO. Put in the work and you will achieve results it’s that simple. I wish you luck and I do apologize for the long winded response. There really is no magic bullet for distance, not a club, not a ball, not shoes. Shafts play a huge role in maximizing distance and that is the extension of the fulcrum. But at the end of the day it’s proper mechanics and work.
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MJTortella, I found your long winded response very interesting. I agree with so much of what you say.
Shaft is the big factor, ball will come down to ‘feel’ and ‘confidence’ as long as it is of reasonable quality! When you find a ball that works, stick with it. It’s like a putter, usually it will be user error!
I have an XR16 pro driver, over 5 years old, but change of shaft keeps it working just fine.
Swing speed is down to good mechanics, but can definitely be increased with SuperSpeed training. Been doing it religiously for 5 months and it works!!!
I am doing speed sticks and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK8ld0M_n_4 The sticks do work, I was surprised, like I can pick up 5MPH after a workout b4 I hit the course…better than the range!
I loved the Kirkland 4-piece ball and wish I had bought more. I played those for over a season and they performed as well as anything for a low price. I liked the 3-piece ball as the price was lower still, but it didn’t perform as well for me. I found it significantly shorter off the tee although still good around the greens. I haven’t tried the newer version, but obviously the price is still great. I thought about getting more, but I would prefer to spend a bit more for the distance (Maxfli’s cost me ~ $22.50 a box). If I didn’t care about cost I’d probably buy the Bridgestones. I played the 2019 Tour B X last year and it was my favorite of all the balls I tried.
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Im not looking for a magic bullet, I’m just trying to make sure I am playing an appropriate ball given my constraints.
Each ball has a different set of characteristics, and thus it is probably worth a little effort making sure you are playing a good fit.
In general, and I have tried all kinds of balls, it’s just a personal preference. For mid to high handicappers there are a ton of “myth-buster” studies out there as far as distance that like a Kirkland or Snell perform as good if not better than Name brands (pick one). As far as wedge game, a low and mid handicapper will find a noticeable spin rate difference, but not enough that is going to be major game improvement. I played Titleist my entire life because that’s what I was taught to use, but I was taught with Balata 100’s, Do I really think my game would have improved switching to Hogan…I highly doubt it. Using Titleist for all those years was like buying Goodyear tires compared to Firestone, that’s what my Dad said was good so you just did it. I just switched to Callaway Supersoft because my swing speed had dipped way below 90. I have several sleeves left, and, to really be honest, I’m happy with their performance for me. I still say, it’s all in the shafts you get matched up to. The pro’s balls are actually individualized for each of them…we just don’t know it. Their stuff doesn’t come off the shelf at Dick’s…LOL Here’s a neat article: https://pggolflinks.com/balls/best-ball-for-mid-handicap/
They are coming out with a new 4 piece ball… my goal was to not buy new balls until I tried that, but I got impatient…
Should be $30 for 2 dozen and online only… no word on the release date.
As for tour players playing custom balls… not really… the ball they play has to be on the usga conforming list and the one ball rule means they will want ample supply.
There are some “tour” balls, but they tend to make their way to the market… the new callaway X soft and the titliest left dash are both balls that started as tour only…
Some players will also play older versions of the balls, but generically what is at retail is what the pros play. Or at least that’s what I’ve read and seen.
At the end of the day, the variety available to me had enough differences to warrant thinking about and making a decision based on what I want from a golf ball… I’ve gone cheaper and given up some amount of performance, and right now I have three dozen balls I believe will perform best for me…
I don’t think it will save me a full stroke per round, but we will see.
To me, this is nutz, but it drives home the point about ball specificity for Pro’s especially. There are like 14 versions of a ProV1 and ProV1x. And every one of them are built differently , some are market available and some are not…Absolutely crazy. The list isn’t made for us regular whackers, that fer sure: https://www.usga.org/ConformingGolfBall/gball_list.pdf Looks like it would take 10 years to go through that list!..LOL
Glad to see OnCore on the list 
Yes, that is a lengthy list. I don’t think I have 10 years of good golf left in me…
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Some very interesting stuff from @jon on his podcast with ping…
Some things I didn’t think about with golf balls:
Simulators are simulating the flight, so they make basic assume about the aerodynamics of a golf ball… and they only have one model… which brings us to…
Spin affects balls differently… this is a simple concept I hadn’t even considered… the dimples are there to create lift, but not all dimples are the same. 3k spin with one ball is different than 3k spin with another…
It was a very interesting episode!
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Thanks! I thought the golf ball part was the most interesting thing for me as well. I’m very interested to see the tool that PING comes out with to recommend a ball.
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