GregGarner

Currently gaming a blended set of Srixons. ZX7's in 4i-7i and Z-Forged blades in 8i-PW. You're right, I was in i210's at the time of the test, though I tend to add a lot of dynamic loft, so I'm typically a club shorter than my peers. I stand by my original assessment that yes, I'm likely outside their target demographic but that they are amazing point-and-shoot irons with hot faces and great feel. (More than a few times during the test I found myself struggling to work the ball, even when I really needed to.) I will say, I haven't given up on the idea of bringing back the D7 3i or 4i to use as more of a driving iron, especially since I just can't get comfortable with my 4-hybrid (fore left!) that I sometimes use when the course has thick rough and the ZX7 4i doesn't have enough muscle to hack it out.

I'm a fan of the Chromesoft X LS. Should be about 200-300 rpm less than the X with a little higher flight. If you can find them, the ProV1x Left Dash is even higher flying and lower spinning while keeping that firm feel. (The main negative, IMO, about Left Dash is that it's very flier prone which the CSX line does a pretty good job protecting against.) I would also take a look at the Bridgestone Tour BX. Really solid ball, firmer than the ProV1 and I really think there's something to their claims about how the cover reacts differently based on how firm it's struck. That ball has plenty of zip around the greens while not ballooning off the tee.

Sadly, mine have been relegated to 'guest' irons. My neighbor's father-in-law used them when he was in town visiting and we all went out to play and he really liked them. I put them in the bag for a week when it was cold and wet, thinking the wider sole and cavity would help me out. I promptly posted a pair of 86's and that was the end of that experiment...

ProV1's and Maxfli's will last a couple rounds. Once the dimple edges start to feel smoother, I'll move it to the shag bag unless I'm just out getting some reps and not trying to shoot a score. It's a judgment call, but I like to pull a fresh ball and compare to see when it's time to retire it. I've been tinkering (again) with the Chromesoft XLS and it definitely shows more wear by the end of one round. (I typically game the same ball for the whole round unless it's cold and then I'll swap between two balls every ~3 holes.) I tried out the Cut Blue DC a couple years ago and it scuffed on a well-struck iron shot from the fairway. I went through an entire sleeve in 2 holes just from scuffs...

If I'm understanding this correctly, that would actually mean it's FIVE-piece with THREE cores! (I appreciate the description of there being an 'inner core' and then an 'innermost' inner core...) Seems reasonable that the early would have pretty high velocity off the driver, with TWO iron-nickel-alloy cores, but spin would be interesting. Pretty firm layer over a liquid dual-mantle, solid dual-core structure? (Also super-excited for the plot-twist where it's not a new innermost core, it's just a gradient core technology like Titleist uses that is soft in the middle and gets firmer as you go out)

The Ballnamic guys were on the Sweet Spot podcast a while back and they talked a lot about the fitting variables. Between what they said and what we're seeing from folks who have gone through the fitting, Ballnamic is going to fit most players into Tour BX, Chrome Soft X, Left Dash, and then pick some other mid-compression Tour ball like ProV1. (Believe it or not, it actually had the Maxfli Tour as a slightly better match for me than ProV1.) To the extent that their algorithm and most players favor distance, those first three I listed are going to keep showing up because in Ping's testing, those are the longest golf balls that don't also sacrifice much in the short game. Tour BX is a little better with flier prevention, Chrome Soft X is a little better in the wind (because it flies lower, mostly), and Left Dash has a high-speed, high-launch, low-spin formula that is a pretty reliable recipe for big drives. I still recommend folks to try it if they haven't, especially if you are not a 'typical' golfer or if you don't live in a 'typical' location, but don't be shocked if those three make your Top 5.

If all of the balls are manufactured in the same place, then I think it checks out. But some, like Callaway, use different sites depending on the tier of ball. That being said, including manufacturer/site in the sortable data would be a VERY interesting addition to the Ball Test results. Imagine if you could see a trend that Foremost-produced balls, for example, were statistically better performing than another manufacturer!

Quick update that seems pertinent... I'm totally acclimated at this point and there are really only three things that I would change: Whenever the wheels get wet (whether from recent rain or morning dew), they 'squawk.' I had to WD-40 them a couple times, but without fail, as soon as they get wet again, they start squawking. Annoying, but not a performance issue. The battery is absolutely awful to remove. It's a smooth plastic that was designed to be sleek and blend into the visual aesthetic of the cart and, when installed, does look great. But then at the end of the round when I want to remove it, there's nowhere to get a grip to pull it out. There's a small rubber cover for the charging port and after the 4th round, I was so frustrated that I couldn't get the battery out, I tried pulling on the rubber cover. It immediately ripped off. I need to get some adhesive silicone so I have a reasonable way to pull out the battery... The front wheel has a tendency to wobble. Since it's a 360-degree wheel, it also has the tendency to cause the cart to follow gravity down a hill, but when I'm steering it straight, it will still sometimes wobble pretty aggressively. I'm pretty confident this is related to the relatively light weight of my golf bag, but if there are any ways to stabilize the wheel a little bit, let's hear it. The battery life continues to be excellent and I typically don't charge until after 27 holes when the battery display shows half or just under. I've done 36 a few times and still had some amount of charge left on it, so absolutely no complaints there, especially since my course is pretty hilly. Still really only using the remote for emergency purposes, though I have figured out (and quite like) that when you use the remote to start, it automatically resets your speed to the lowest setting. Very rarely, I'll use the remote to start the cart towards the next hole while I'm putting the flag stick back in (etc) and having it go slowly means I'll catch up to it before it has a chance to careen into somebody's backyard.

The whole conversation around playing ionomer-covered balls is purely a financial decision. Spending time and energy testing which is the best of the worst isn't worth anyone's time. If the MGS crew wanted to throw in ONE ionomer/non-range ball for comparison to be able to see just how different it is from urethane, fine, but there really just can't be a serious conversation about trying to identify the "best performer" from a grouping of balls that are explicitly manufactured NOT to perform in the same way that a urethane ball is meant to perform.

Both my wife and the 5 dozen balls in my cabinet say that I do NOT need to buy a dozen of the S's for testing. Buuuuuut....

I'd love to see Piper Golf and Sugar Golf included. There are a bunch of these very small DTC brands that I think MGS might be able to find a diamond in the rough if it tests well. And not necessarily a ball I want to see, but I hope that there's NOT a "well we tested that version two years ago, so we can just incorporate that data" attitude. I could see this being the case with balls like Left Dash or Snell's MTB-X, but even if the robot and club are exactly the same as two years ago, the testing conditions are different and not absolute. There are already plenty of discrepancies about the overall testing protocol, but "comparison" data from an entirely different testing session from two years ago would pretty significantly undercut the validity of the results. I also want to see standard deviations. But in case it wasn't clear already, I'm not the average retail consumer.

This is really interesting, I wouldn't have thought about comparing to the standard Chromesoft. Though, that does almost immediately remove it from consideration for me (I don't like the low-compression, low-spin combo, so I'm not likely the target market for Tour S anyways)

If you haven't yet, I would recommend trying out the Ballnamic fitting tool. If nothing else, it can get you a few balls to try and you can go from there.

This begs the question... if it's not softer and spins about the same, in what ways is it different from the Tour? It just flies lower? (I know, I know, this was just a hot-take and you can't really give a full comparison review yet. Just musing...)

I think the strategy is two-fold. 1) He's not trying to compete against DTC, he's competing against the big boys. Same with his clubs. He wasn't trying to compete with Takomo, New Level, Sub70, etc, etc etc (ok, maybe Avian...) And there are now multiple people just in this thread willing to at least try them out with the justification that, "hey, they're cheaper than ProV1s!" which is exactly the point. 2) As has already been joked about/suggested, the pricing is almost certainly going to get slashed at some point in the (near?) future. But by then, the PXG fan base will have already placed their orders, the reviews will already be in on those who bought a dozen just to test them, etc. And if/when they run a Memorial Day/Flag Day/4th of July/Veterans Day sale at $24.99/doz, the rest of us will think, "ok, maybe this is worth trying..." But that's all just back of the napkin, armchair quarterbacking. Who actually knows what the real strategery is other than Bob? I'm totally in agreement with Tony on this one, though. At $24.99 or even $29.99, this could be disruptive. At $39.99, you're going to need prominent shelf space because those in the know, know there are better deals to be had.