JRDuck40

Ooooo Top 5 BEST 5. Takomo Irons - just purchased but quickly climbing the list. 4. Ping ISI Irons (first new set of irons I had in HS) 3. Cleveland Quadpro Driver 2. Titleist TSI 5w (quickly replaced my 3w and is my new favorite club!) 1. Titleist Scott Cameron Golo S Worst 5. Callaway Mavrik Sub Zero Driver (that club was more unreliable than than a drunk ex) 4. TaylmorMade SLDR - Why, just why. One out of every 5 shots was 'ok'. 3. Odyssey white fang mallet - just zero feeling. Thank god I only dropped $35 on it. Haha. 2. Titleist Vokey SM8 50* F grind. I could not hit it to save my life. Purchased it online because I have a $100 GC to burn. Wish I would've never wasted that. When in doubt, always buy more balls, gloves or grips. Always! 1. Scotty Cameron Phantom X 5.5 - Spent over $400 at a golf show... not it just looks pretty in my basement. FML

More BOMBs all night last night. My playing partner was smashing drives again 300+ all night. Ball used was the Chrome Tour. His current driver is a Taylormade RBZ Stage 2 10..5 deg. If you are looking to add distance, this is the ball for you!

Still gaming my Chrome Tour for sim league tonight. I do have to say that I'm surprised by the distance gained by my playing partner. He typically is around 275 to 280 total distance. While using the Chrome Tour, he's consistently carrying 290 to 295 with driver. I do personally see some smaller gains, but his swing speed is slightly higher than mine, 105-110, where as I'm at 95-100 mph. I'll have updates later on this week.

SERIOUSLY!!! More balls?!?!? Wow! Excited to give these a try vs my Sirxon Z Star and the new Callaway Chrome Tour line up.

I am really surprised by the wear on the ball in these pics. I have been using the same Chrome Tour for Sim time for the past 5 sessions and have not seen wear like that at all. Hate to ask, but do you by chance have dirty grooves on some clubs? That would cause discoloration and potentially scuffs on the cover.

Same. I have actually noticed the opposite on both balls. Played another 18 outdoors yesterday and did not find any issues with the cover. One thing I did notice in difference on this round vs the prior outdoor testing is that the Chrome Tour X did not spin as much as the prior round. Course played this time around was Kettle Hills GC. Greens here are typically quite firm and can run fast. They did recently sand and fertilize so it was quite slow compared to their normal mid-summer conditions. Also, I did notice a little more pop / yardage on a few shots. Particularly mid iron shots. My 7 iron was getting a little more height and carry with the Callaway VS my Sirxon Z Star XV.

FYI - the Buy 3 get 1 is now live on GolfGalaxy.com https://www.golfgalaxy.com/p/callaway-2024-chrome-tour-x-triple-track-golf-balls-4-dozen-24cwyu2024chrmtrxgbl/24cwyu2024chrmtrxgbl https://www.golfgalaxy.com/p/callaway-2024-chrome-tour-triple-track-golf-balls-4-dozen-24cwyu2024chrmtrtgbl/24cwyu2024chrmtrtgbl Happy shopping boys!

Outdoor test = Chrome Tour X Indoor Test = Chrome Tour

Chrome Tour indoor sim testing For this test, I'm pitting the Callaway against my current gamer ball again, Sirxon Z Start XV. This is taking place at Stix Golf in Germantown, WI. If you live in the greater MKE area, check them out! Great SIM bays and lots of them! https://stixgolfbar.com/ The Sim being used is Full Swing. For the final test, I'm using my 3 favorite clubs, 52 deg Cleveland RTX Raw, Takomo 101T 7i and my Titleist TS3 18 deg. First up... Sirxon Z Star (Green) second round was Chrome Tour (Red). The biggest thing I noticed in outdoor testing on the Chrome X was the height I was gaining and the spin vs my XV. With the Tour, my ball flight was slightly lower than my current ball. Also the spin rate was relatively the same between the ball. The one thing I did notice was feel. The Chrome was quite a bit softer coming off the face versus the XV. I do like a crisp hit versus a soft 'thud'. Also very true on putting... Next up was the 7 iron test. Again first up.. XV (Green), Chrome Tour (Red) Again, the deviation between the apex and spin rates are pretty much the same... Tour getting a little less height, which I am okay with. Also the spin rate was lower than the XV. One other note, the over distance on the Tour was on average, longer than the XV. And let's be honest, we all want to hit it farther. Don't kind yourself. Everyone want's that! Last but not least, the cherry on top, TS3 Hybrid. Z Start was first, with an avg distance of 234.8. Tour came in at avg. 222.6 yards. This club I typically hit slightly lower and have quite a bit of rollout per the courses I play in my area, Washington County, Kettle Hills, Dretzka Park GC & Brown Deer Park GC. Especially at Wash Co, you NEED to keep the ball lower and let it run. True links style track. To be quite honest, after hitting the Tour VS the XV, I would most likely not move onto this ball. The Chrome X was better performing for me outdoors and I was not seeing any significant gains VS the XV on the Tour. That being said, I still gave it a fair shake for the evening. Our league round was at St Andrews - Old Course. Conditions are - static wind (Zero Wind), 1500 ft above sea level, firm fairways and 10 foot gimmies. IE hit the ball, putt the ball within 10 feet and it's a auto 1 putt. I did play the ball the entire 9. And I would have to say that it held it's own. Quite a few close shots and one or two bad ones... Case in point (I apologize in advance) But overall, the one thing that was going well was putting. I REALLY do like the triple track markings on the ball. It makes alignment for putting SO much easier. So overall. I would have to say that I was quite happy with the results. This was beyond my best round of the year so far. I'm usually around -1 to maybe -3 per 9. 7 freaking under par was incredible! As DP would say... The good.... again greenside / wedge play / irons The Tour VS the X on putting / greenside, the Tour takes the W here IMO. It's not as spongy / soft as the X. I also very, very much appreciate the alignment on the ball. Wedges / iron shots and spin, it is closer to my Sirxon XV and doesn't really deviate all that much to height. The Chrome X was a rocket ship. It would just climb and climb whereas the Tour had a similar flight path that I'm used to. Spin, again similar to the XV, which I like. The X was a spin machine, which may be good for some guys, the Tour held when I needed it to do so and wasn't overly backing up like the Tour X did. Of course this on a sim, not outdoors, but I'm just going off of what I can. Feel / Looks / Spin Score - 18.5/20 The bad... There really wasn't much of this. The sound and feel off my hybrid, fw metal and driver was nowhere near the odd / mechanical feeling that I was getting off of the X. It was softer than my Sirxon XV and performed just as well. Overall, I was pretty happy with the Tour. Buy it or toss it? I hate to say this, and so does my wife, but I'm very much leaning toward buying. I do have 4doz of the Sirxon, in the basement currently. That being said, once that is depleted, I will be keeping Callaway in mind, especially the Chrome Tour. I really liked the feel, look and performance. Great ball flight, similar numbers to the Sirxon on spin rates and distance. They really stepped up their game with the new Chrome release. And to be 100% honest, I wasn't expecting much because of prior issues I personally had with the Chrome line. Well done Callaway, a very well done job indeed. Overall score 19/20 Final Tally Chrome X v Sirxon Z Star XV 16.5/20 On Course Chrome X - 17.5 / 20 Chrome X Overall - 16.5 / 20 Tour Feel / Spin / Looks - 18.5 / 20 Overall Tour - 19 / 20 Final Score - 88 / 100

Mine HAS to be divot / ball marks on the green. At my Tuesday night league, the groups in front of us are notorious for not fixing / repairing their marks. It's gotten to the point that I'm spending more time fixing ball marks than reading the green for my putt. Midway through the season last year it was so bad that a few of us told the pro / starter... Of course nothing was done. I was joking around with a few guys saying that I should charge the course a nickel a repair and invoice them after my round. FIX YOUR DAMN MARKS PEOPLE!!! Old man rant over. haha

Good luck testers! The Callaway testing was a blast.

I would say buying the epoxy from The Golf Works. I mixed per their specification and made a few clubs and repaired a few as well. Almost all but 2 clubs had heads FLY off! I have since moved onto JB Weld epoxy for any and all club repairs. Zero issues and it costs less per oz than the golf works epoxy.

Just got an promotional email from a course around MKE (Kettle Hills GC). They are running the buy 3 get 1 free promo on TaylorMade TP5X, Titleist (All high end models - including ProV1x left dash) , Callaway Chrome and Bridgestone. You have to use their online portal to purchase and then they will have the balls in house for pickup. No shipping unfortunately. If anyone is in the Milwaukee area, it's a pretty great promo for high end balls. If you're interested, PM me and I can forward along the email.

It honestly sounded like he was smashing into metal with his Ping. IE ball peen hammer into a 1/4 inch steel. It was crazy loud! That was something that was really throwing me off. Just the feel and sound off of driver / fairway metals was odd.

Gotcha. That may be a local thing then. Best deal we have around here is end of year sales from a few pro shops. All the larger retailers, Dicks, Golf Galaxy, PGA SS etc. just run the national programs. If you local track ships out of state, please let me know. I would be VERY interested in a buy 3 get one 1 Titleist program.

My biggest beef with the ball was putting. I tried them with my scotty's, a ping and a Odyssey i have lying around. All 5 the ball felt like it was just popping off the putter face. Playing this past Wednesday, anything downhill was just blasting past the hole. I'm typically not doing that... but it was also the first time playing outdoors since November for me. But again, I do not do that with putts. The one very big thing I do like is that they are making these triple track. Huge for alignment and less time I have to mess around with putting my alignment line on each ball I buy. (But I do find that cathartic some days. haha) The sound / feel off the driver... it's just odd. The only way I can describe it would be "mechanical". If that even sounds right. It honestly almost felt like there was a small metal ball within the Tour and Tour X. It also made a very odd clunk sound vs the crisp sound of my Z Star XV, AVX or event a ProV. I could learn to live with the putting feel. I'm sure a little practice outdoors will go a long way The one VERY big gain was the spin / control greenside and irons. Holy crap. If you have issues making the ball stop, give these a try. Also the cover held up like a champ. 10 / 10 for the new cover. Is that direct through Titleist? Because I've never seen that promo! HOW AM I MISSING OUT!?!?

Only manufactures that run the buy x get 1 free are TaylorMade, Sirxon and Maxfli. Titleist did run a two dozen for $100 for ProVs around Christmas this year. I do not think Callaway has a program like this... But if they did, I'd most likely be game to purchase a buy 2 get 1 of the Chrome X.

Full outdoor testing with the Chrome X Little warm up video. Overall, conditions were ideal for a day in late February for Wisconsin. We are usually under 2 feet of snow and temps in the teens if not below zero. This was a treat so I was 100% fine burning a vacation day to get out and do some testing. Onto the first hole. Par 4 - 325 slight dogleg left. Hit 5 wood to 90 yards and change left to hole. YES that IS snow to the left of the green. It's February in WI people. We're lucky to be outside. Let along being able to play. Ended up lipping out the 10 ft bird. Onward and upward. 2nd hole - Par 5 - 515 yards. Pulled the drive off to the left hand side and clipped a branch. After a punch 4i to 145 yards, here is the approach with my 7i. First shot was with the Sirxon, second with the Callaway. Hitting the approach into the 2nd. 145, wind coming left to right. Hitting a knocked down 7i to keep it out of the wind. Ended up making par with both the Sirxon and Callawy. Chrome ended up spinning back around 10 to 12 feet again. 3rd hole - Par 3, 157. Slightly downhill with wind directly into our face. Hit 7i to around 25 feet and made the bird! Boom!!! Onto the 4th. Longer par 5, 535 with trouble on both sides. OB right with a FW bunker that is driveable. Water left of fairway. Here's the tee shot. After hitting 5wood. I had around 70 yards to the middle of the green. Pin was front middle, total yardage of the shot was around 50-52 yards. (I know, I know.. I don't have a laser for this round. Only using my Garmin for yardage). Both my current gamer, Z Star XV and Callaway checked up nicely, the Callaway did stick and stop, versus the Z releasing out. All in all, I'm quite impressed by the Callaways. New few holes it was a little too soggy to take vid. Par 4 - 5th. Dogleg right with the green uphill. Hit 3 wood to the right and needed to punch it uphill. Ended up hitting a small branch and the cover on the Callaway held up! This was not true with ANY prior version of the Chrome family that I played prior. That ball would've been in the 5 gallon bucket of death in my garage at the end of the round. On the par 4 6th, Hit driver - 5 iron. Ended up getting up and down for a par. The Chrome performed great on the greenside again. Slight chip downhill and the ball checked up and stopped around 12 feet. 7th hole - Par 3 - 170. Hit 6i into left side of green. Ended up 3 putting and making bogey. One criticism of the Chrome at this point. The ball is almost too soft for it's own good for putting. Anything downhill, it was tough to get a good feel for it. If I played this for a few weeks and got some additional practice sessions on the greens in, I'm sure I would make it work, but that's just one thing I'm noticing by this point. Onto the par 4 8th - 390 slight dogleg left. Hit driver then 9i. I'm seeing some slight gains on distance vs the Z Star, but it's too cold / early in the year to tell. I will be doing some additional driver testing next week on the sim. (Stay tuned!) Went 9i and was not able to get in for par. Onward to the 9th. Par 4, 395 to finish the front 9. Hit driver with 120 left to front of green. Ended up leaving my 9 very short and ended up with a 40 total for the front. All in all, I was quite impressed by the Chrome. I put the ball through the ringer. I did not use more than 1 Callaway and one of my Sirxon's for the entire front and both held up quite well. The updated cover on the Callaway was light years better than the prior gen. Some points of interest.... 1 - Spin rate. The Chrome X is a spin machine. Buyer beware. 2 - Sound off of fairway metal. Not a big fan. I let one of the guys in our group hit one a few times and it sounded very 'dead' off of his Ping G425 Max. Same went for the sound and feel off of my TSR2. Not something that deter me away from playing them, jut a nit pick thing that caught my attention. 3 - Cover. Holy crap was this impressive. After all the things I put that ball through, it held up. And held up all day long. I played the X all 18 holes and it is still a playable ball afterwards. Not something I can always say about my XV's, older AVXs or even the Maxfli Tour X that i recently picked up late last year. 4 - Putting. This was a concern and still is. The ball is almost too soft to a fault on and around the green. For chipping, it sticks. Which is good. For putting, it almost feels like hitting a 'bouncy ball'. Very springy off of my Scotty Cam GoLo S. If i spent a little more time on the putting green before the round, I'm sure I would've gotten a better feel for the ball, but nonetheless, it was tough to gauge speed on the green with the X. VS the Sirxon Z Star XV - 16.5 out of 20 - Chrome X / 18.5 Z Star For distance, spin, iron feel and cover durability, the Chrome X was great compared to my Z Star. Where it feel a bit short for me was putting, Driver / FW Metals feel and sound. It was a big difference in feel and it was difficult to get used to the softer feel of the Chrome vs XV. Epically off the tee and putting. On The Course - 17.5 out of 20 For overall performance. The Callaway did admirably. On cover performance alone, it was stupid good. Hit a few branches and the ball damn near did not have a scratch on it. Iron play, it felt great. It was quite possibly the closet ball to a ProV1x that I've ever hit. I honestly prefer the ProV, but Titlesit priced themselves out of the market when they charge nearly $60 a dozen IMO.... Back the Chrome. It very much felt good off the face and performed as good as the Z Star. The approach on the par 4, 15th I had around 120 uphill with wind at my back. Hit a PW to 10 feet and stuck it. Loved the feel and performance. Driver / Fairway metals - This is where I wasn't all that big on the Chrome X. Because of all the spin, it did have a tendency to get sideways. My typical ball flight it a slight fade and lower flight. While the Callaway did go a little further, it also had a tendency to get a little too high for my liking. Tee shot on the par 11th. It was one of the better drives of the day, but the sound was not what I am accustomed to. Still, beggars can't be choosers and this was a great shot. Greenside / chipping. They stick. That's all I can say about it. They just hit, stick, stop and back the F%$# up. I was shocked by the stopping power. If you have a tendency to need more feel / spin around the green, 30 yards and in, these babies just stop. Putting - Like i said previously, they almost have a dead feel / too soft of a feel for me. That's where they lost me. Overall, this test gave me a big insight into where Callaway is going with their new ball lineup. And the finial word is up. Way the heck up. This test defiantly put Callaway back in the mix for purchasing balls in the future. Before, I would not even consider them for replacing my current setup. Now, they have a legit shot. Just don't go all Titlesit and charge $60 a dozen. Good - Spin, Iron Play, Greenside, Cover, Feel on wedges. Ok - Long iron shots and feel off of hybrid Bad - Putting and sound off of Driver / Fairway metal. Overall score / performance score - 16.5 / 20

So the outdoor testing yesterday on the X was insane. These balls are just leaps and bounds above the prior gen. I did get a tic squirrelly with 3 drives. One on the 2nd hole, Par 5 and missed the FW to the left and struck a branch. Second, on the 6th hole, again miss left with clipping the top of another tree. Last was on the 17th. Did not finish my swing and ended up hitting it OB right and putting a little road rash on the ball. Same ball was used all day. This was not possible at all with ANY prior Chrome Soft I have ever come across. In fact, see the attached photo of the 2022 Chrome Soft that I was playing recently at my weekly sim league. This was not the first, nor 2nd time either myself or a playing partner had a ball crack. That being said, the new gen was a trooper. All of these mis-hits did not phase the ball whatsoever. Even the scuff on the 17th was cleaned up after rubbing it down for a few moments. Callaway made some huge leaps and bounds with the durability of the cover. Cover durability score - 10 out of 10! I have been playing for 30+ years and cannot recall ever hitting cart path / pavement / darn near any hard surface and having a ball almost be completely free of any burr, marking or discoloration. Shocking! I'll be loading up quite a bit more content and a hole by hole run down later on. Stay tuned!

UPDATE from WI WE PLAY OUTSIDE! No joke. It was 60 and sunny today. In February from the land that typically is so cold right now that it hurts your face! Was happy to burn a vacay day and get out. Any way, I was able to do quite a bit of testing on the Tour and Tour X the last 48 hours. Tour inside, Tour X out. My favorite input so far on the X was qutie possibly from the first hole today. Short par 4, 330 with slight dog leg left. Hit 5 wood to 92 yards to pin. Took a knock down 52 deg, and the Chrome landed 15 feet past the hole. Then proceeded to spin back to 5 feet below the hole. It was a slight incline. And I say SLIGHT. I have not seen a ball pull back like this in quite some time. These babies are SPIN FACTORY all the way. Wow!

VERY excited to say. There WILL BE outdoor testing in WI! Tee time for 1030 a tomorrow for me! Super excited to test the ball vs my sirxon z star xv. Currently at virtual leave. Liking the spin and response on the irons so far. No so much on the driver / fairway woods.

Morning everyone! Excited to start my first official MGS test. Short bit about myself / game. Live in southeast WI... So almost zero chances for outdoor golf between November and mid-March. But, when I can, I do make it to a local heated outdoor range. Going on 41 in April and I have been playing for 30+ years. I play competitively on WSGA (WI Amateur) with quite a few single or two man events. Current handicap at the end of 2023 is a 6.1. I am not a long hitter by any means, avg. drive is 245 yards. But I'm pretty darn accurate and any misses, I make up with an above average short game. Current setup is; D- Titleist TSR2 w Mitsubishi Tensei 50g Stiff 3w - Titleist TSR2 w/ Mitsubishi Tensei 65g Stiff 5w - Titleist TS2 w/ Mitsubishi Diamana 65g Stiff HYB - Titleist TSi 18* w/ Mitsubishi Diamana 65g Stiff DI - Mizuno FliHi 3i w/ UST Mamiya ESX Hybrid Stiff 60g Irons - 4-PW Takomo 101T w/ KBS Tour Stiff Wedges - Cleveland RTX ZipCore 54/10 60/10 w/ TrueTemper T100 Putter - Scotty Cameron Select GoLo S The way I will be tackling this test is 4 levels. First and foremost is putter feel. If it doesn't feel great on the flat stick. It will for sure not make it in the bag. Second, I will test it against my current gamer on the TSR2 Driver, 3w and TS2 5w. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not a long hitter, but I hit fairways, keep it out of hazards and I do not deviate on my trajectory all that much. Third, iron play. Again, I'm accurate with my Takomo's and any large deviation on ball flight, spin, feel, this is going to be a hard no go. Lastly, wedge / green side feel and spin. My current gamer ball is the Sirxon Z Star XV. I made the switch from AVX around mix-summer last year and had some great success with the Sirxon. I've noticed a more consistent piercing ball flight with the same, if not a tic better greenside feel and spin rates with my irons. If the Callaway is going to stand ANY chance, it has a BIG hill to climb. I'm excited to share what I find and I have to be honest, all the hype behind the new Chrome line, and Callway in general, I'm excited to give them another shot. I have played Callaway in some way or form over the past 10 years. I've owned a few Callaway drivers (Maverik, Epic, Steelhead, War Bird and one of my firsts being a Big Bertha). My prior iron set before I switched to Takomo was the 2020 Mavrik 4-AW. The equipment has been stellar with quite a few friends playing their latest and greatest. (Paradym Driver, Mavrick Irons, Apex Irons, Jaws wedges) and I've tried them a few times and did like the looks / feel. With the exception of the name (Paradym). IMO = not a great pivot from EPIC and Mavrick line names. Onto the Unbox! WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE! White box testing is legit cool. Came in a heavily padded box with the famous all white box and sleeves. First impressions - I LOVE the triple track alignments. I always mark my ball with a straight line for putting / alignment. I'll still put my personal mark on them (small shamrock near the manufacture name), but won't have to put my straight line of the ball. Look at that Callaway! You're already saving me $$$ by not having to purchase a new alignment marker tool. Next test... and the MOST crucial is putting and initial feel. I'll be sending this later on this week. Overall rating for unbox = 9.5/10 - only thing that would put this over the top would be a signed letter from Callaway saying something to the effect - "Welcome to the party" or "BOMBS AWAY!" haha... But in all seriousness, a full box of balls for a test is crazy. This is a HUGE gesture and thank you from Callaway to give the new Chrome Tour a run. Thanks for reading!

SUPER excited to give these a run. I'm going to be using them for league (indoor sim) tomorrow night. BUT, the long term forecast is looking somewhat warm in WI.. Hopefully I can sneak out on an actual course in the coming days.

Excited to give these a run. I've always been a little suspect of Callaway balls, but willing to have an open mind for this. Excited to see how they perform next to my Z Star and prior ball, AVX. Thanks again for the opp!

I just picked up a set of 101Ts, KBS tour lite stuff and the only complaint I have is the grips. Going from my Lamkin UTX cords to the stock grips installed. Other than that, it is a hot knife thru butter. Mis hits still go straight. They are super forgiving and I have been working the ball and loving it. Amazing set and cannot beat the cost. Also love the free hat and towel.