Thin2win

Yep. Soft is talked about, dimples are not. With some of the balls having near identical launch angles and spin numbers, I have to assume that aero plays some roll. But again, I guess it has never really been tested and at this point dimple patterns are all hype.... oh please let there be a dimple pattern ball test in the future. Also, I think TXG does great work. They have shown over and over that shafts do behave different, and there is a "best" option for each person, but that every swing needs to be fit. High launch shafts might be the opposite for some players, they are well thought out and they try not to talk in absolutes. I have no issue at all with them testing different balls, I'm curious what they will find. My previous comment was more about what was said, CG Quad over 20' has to do some cool math. And I get that it does that math very very well, I was just curious if that 20' calculation will be as accurate as a trackman on a range with full flight tracking radar. If I was putting one in my garage, I would go CG Quad, but on a open range.... I was just asking the question. I am sure the guy who built those units is probably on this forum and will tell me why it doesn't matter, I'm good with that. Based on the Video they did, they mention that spin axis was off immediately on some of the balls that had crazy flyers. And if it is off from the first moment, I'd guess CG quad handles that just fine. I'm am now more curious about dimple patterns hype/reality. Please MGS, bring in Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman for a golfball dimple myth testing. This needs to happen. -corrected some of my less than amazing typing skills-

I guess the only part of a TXG test that I would question, is only that it is done indoors with only 20' or so of ball flight. I'm assuming there are some good calculations, but they have to have some standard aero coefficients plugged in. Might make it hard for one brand /ball to show much difference from another. Maybe not?

Don't worry, if I had Twitter I'd block you for your sane and calm responses. Twitter is no place for that kind of collaboration.

Also, I wouldn't stop buying them if they were the ball that i was just in love with.

Would I buy Chrome Soft based on this testing? Nope, but that said, they aren't bad balls, I wouldn't scrap them. Depending on your swing speed you are talking 4-9 yards shorter on drives to the average ball in the test. After that they score well with the 7 iron results and the wedges, easily top half in both those tests. And depending on how you want to twist the data potentially better than ProV1 and TP5, so in the scoring areas they are great. I feel like Callaway should have jumped on that in their press release. I'll play Callaway PR for a moment: The Callaway Chromesoft, more accurate than TP5 and ProV1 from 135 yards in. When scoring matters. *source MGS, largest independent golf equipment tester. Instead they went sour grapes, shame.

ProV1x, Bridgestone B X are probably the best bets if your just looking for some increased driver performance. They happen to be pretty good at everything else too.

I feel the same way about ball fitting. I went through a couple of ball fittings with Bridgestone back when they did that at courses all the time. Their method was to fit you for the longest straightest ball on your driver. If they could keep you in the fairway closer to the hole, your scores would be better. It made sense to me. I agree with you about the wedge numbers, there are very close. A couple stand out for being 1 standard deviation better , but effectively, they are all very close. For me, the biggest thing is a ball that is "straight" off the tee, and has consistent carry with an iron.

All, Who doesn't love numbers and theory crafting which ball might be amazing?! I think I have already dropped 3 strokes off my score just reading this article. So, I took a not so random collection of the balls from this test, 18 of them in total. And played with Excel today to calculate, weight and score them based on my preferences. Since I'm just over 100mph ss I averaged out all data for that speed. I'll attached a Google Docs link for anyone who really wants to dig through what I did, and how I weighted categories, and which categories I decided mattered to me. Wow, some huge surprises and some expected results. If you want more particulars, checkout the doc or let me know, but as to not bore the rest of you. Top 5 balls with no significant difference between them: V1x, Vice Pro, Bridgestone B XS, Mizuno RB Tour X(!), TaylorMade TP5 Worst 5: Bridgestone B RX, ChromeSoft, Maxfli Tour, TaylorMade TP5X, and I added the Tour Soft as a throw in, it was the worst. All said and done, I'll probably switch to the Vice Pro after my current ball pool is diminished. I do have a few dozen 4 Piece KSigs still, and a collection of MTB X. Those will all be fine, but when I get through all them. The Vice Pro and the B XS have me the most intrigued. And the price of the Vice Pro is a significant plus. I was surprised that the TP5 was one of the best, and the TP5x was only better than the only Surlyn ball in the test group. MGS Ball Test 100 MPH swing speed Google Doc Side note, Blue cells are 1 Std Dev better than average, green is better than average, Yellow is worse than average, Red is 1 Std Dev worse than average. Cheers all.

Yeah... I might have ordered the 5 dozen bargain pack after reading the test. You can blame me.

The data set is pretty immense, and it really doesn't say there is a "best" ball. But I think it really does give us huge amounts of information to guide us towards a ball that will probably work best for us. Most of the data sets have a pretty identifiable line slope, and the balls all fall basically on that line. If you are looking for a lower spinning higher launching ball, it shows you which to look at, same for the lower launch more spin. Or if you like the numbers you have it gives you that center area. Just a huge amount of information. And I think everyone can come away from it with a different "winner". I have ordered a box of the MTB X and the Bridgestone Bx to test, as I liked how they looked, but man, someone else could see those two as being awful choices.

Is a difference but not really that big of one, 9x9 yard area vice 13x13 yard. 2 yards on the margins should still be finding fairways. Both are very good numbers.

This was an excellent test. The data is going to take us as much time to consume as it took them to make it, no wonder we had weeks of waiting. Biggest take aways for me: use the same ball most of that top "tier" of balls, are going to give good consistent results. my testing that showed the Wilson Duo was 20 yards shorter than the other golf ball I use was pretty spot on. Sorry Wilson. I am curious about their suggested ball fitting technique. The Bridgestone method makes the most sense to me, fit for your driver. Finding the ball that gives the best distance/dispersion is the biggest effect on score. Shorter approaches and more fairways / less OB tee shots always made sense to me on how to fit for a ball. The recommendation of starting with what putts and chips the best and work back, didn't work in my mind when I read it other places online or saw it in a YouTube video, and it still doesn't make sense to me know. That I think is my only gripe with the entire article. That and editing didn't check a "lowe" instead of "lower" but I make more mistakes than that in one forum comment, so I'll let it slide this time =).

I think you might be thinking compression, not compressing. What they found, and I believe are saying is that we all swing fast enough to compress a golf ball, regardless of its compression rating. But those balls with higher compression ratings tend to go further. That would match you and your buddies findings with the Duo. Two different things, similar words

Based off my experience, Wilson's on the bottom for distance wouldn't surprise me. But I'm more curious about left /right dispersion, I heard there are some real differences there.

So not Monday is it? I think it is getting closer