GregGarner

Yeah, unfortunately Maxfli will be hard for you to source. But you might also take a look at Seed golf balls. And I'll +1 to checking out Vice. The Vice Pro is pretty similar to the ProV1, maybe a little less spin, and the Vice Pro Plus is an all-around great ball, generally geared for faster swing speeds. If you're wanting to stay a little more "name brand," then the Srixon Z-Star series can usually be had for a reasonable price as they often have buy-2-dozen-get-1-free sales. There's one going on now and there will be another in June. The Z-Star Diamond tested VERY well in the MGS ball test last year.

Unless you're just sold on Callaway, it might be worth looking at the Maxfli Tour lineup. I really like the CS XLS as well, but have also had great results with the Maxfli Tour S. It's a completely different experience (much softer, a little less spin) but it works for me. Comparing the ERC Soft to the XLS is going to be tough, they're completely different as well. I think the ERC Soft is closer to the Tour S than the XLS, personally, but the Tour S should give you better greenside performance. Maxfli Tour S is available in a 4-dozen cube for about $120 and if you have any Dick's Cash, you can get them for cheaper. Additionally, I'm a fan of the yellow that Maxfli uses. Very bright and easy to see (and @Yellow Ball approved)

They also just released a new "TheStack Radar" that basically looks like a PRGR but with Bluetooth, so it will automatically port your speeds into the app. The bundled price is less than the cost of a new driver and can confirm, you'll get more out of it than a new driver.

I'm here with you. Irons have never been a strength for me, but they were dialed in through ~October. By December, I was noticing that I was starting to have some lefts creeping in. I can't say for sure that it's the Stack as my irons are 3 years old now and likely need their lies checked, but I do think my path is much more from the inside now. I'm hitting a bunch of sweepy draws and pull draws, especially with longer irons. I'm starting to get it back though, just need to stay with it! Also, it's definitely helping to have 9i into greens where I used to have 7i just a few months ago...

Love the XV! Are those the prior gen 4-piece? Have you tried the 3-piece version yet?

This gets said periodically, but I really think it should be stated explicitly in the app and in any marketing materials over and over and over. It's hard to understate how important it is to grasp that even if your max doesn't increase that much, your floor will come up and you'll find your cruising speed rising to meet your max. Related, I was recently informed of a group text chat among other members at my club all discussing my recent gains. It's still been pretty chilly, but when the longest player in our group noticed that I was keeping pace with him (and driving past him on good strikes), it's quite a statement. My favorite moment was the 10th hole, which is a tough dogleg right par 4 with OB left, a bunker right, and absolute death right of the bunker. Most guys can still hit driver, but if you can get it to ~270-280, you need to drop down to 3-wood, even though it leaves a longer approach. There was a note of surprise when I pulled 3-wood, but then flared it just a bit. From the tee, said long hitter asked, "just short of the bunker?" and then was surprised to see that I landed at the extreme long edge of the bunker and it nearly bounced out, about 265 from the tee.

Anybody else having trouble post-app update? I'm on the iPad app and ever since the update, the voice input and countdown timers have been totally messed up. I'll swing, say the speed, it'll repeat back the speed, but it doesn't input the numbers into the data field, doesn't show the speed, and doesn't show the countdown timer. Then I'll hear the beeps for the 3-second countdown, but it's like the UI still thinks I'm on swing 1. So then I walk over and type in the speed and it repeats back the speed for swing 1 (yes, it's repeating back TWO swing 1 speeds) but at no point is it showing the countdown timer. Then I'll go to set 2 and I'll get a countdown timer between sets, but not even the beeps between swings for the rest of the session. Super annoying/buggy.

We're saying the same thing... it's literally why I included "typical" and "most" because the point should be that every person should go to a good/competent fitter to be fit for their specific swing. I'm not advocating that every 17 cap should play a softer shaft (not all of them should) because it will give them more distance (it won't for all of them). Instead, I'm thinking about the rationale for why the fitter in the OP would have made such a blanket statement. It's not that it's right, it's just lazy.

Have you tried the Z-Star Diamond? If you're seeing significant gains with the RB Tour X, it might be that you could benefit from more spin and the Diamond is a pretty incredible ball (AND comes in yellow!)

Fair, but to OP's point, you're not the target demo being discussed. The typical 17-cap doesn't hit the ball high enough or with enough spin. Pound for pound, I just wouldn't be surprised if putting a Modus3 120 R-flex into their hands is, in many cases, better performance than a DG R300. And of course, we all know how most fitters sell their club configurations...

I'm wearing pants until it's 70...

Modus 120 is much, much softer than pretty much any other shaft of the same weight and flex. A Modus 120 stiff is even softer than an Aerotech i95 REGULAR flex! I'm not surprised that the fitter is putting a lot of amateurs into a soft shaft, they're probably getting some extra yards and not swinging hard enough to create dispersion issues

Well, I'm happy to report that Max swings are indeed part of Neural Drive. Starting in Phase 2, it looks like all of my swings will be Max

Now if we can just figure out how to get Golf Galaxy to honor my pro shop credit!

I was pretty convinced that I would just stick with Left Dash (since the Chromesoft XLS is no more). But I snagged a sleeve of the new Chrome Tour before playing yesterday and... wow. I definitely need to do more testing. The Chrome Tour is a dang good ball. Driver/long game: really solid, firm feel (firmer than I was expecting, though obviously softer than LD); flatter trajectory, which I need. The LD tends to fly pretty high and I'd like something flying through a lower window. And the main thing I was worried about? It's definitely not too spinny. Whenever I'd game the XLS (i.e. when I couldn't find LD in stores), I'd have to loft down my driver to try and take spin off. The Chrome Tour seems to have reduced driver spin and I was able to pick up a few yards as a result. Mid-irons: Noticeably softer feeling as the swing speed comes down. Appropriate amount of spin for me. I have a tendency to hit moon balls that spin way too much (I have been known to hit a 5i that spins back a few feet...) and these seem to be much more controlled. My personal favorite was a 7i into the 18th that one-hopped-and-stopped about 10 feet from the pin. Short-irons and full wedges: Softer still and picking up more spin. 9i pulled back a couple feet, but not excessive. Full gap wedge into a few greens came back a consistent 8-10 feet, which is a little more than I like, but I can live with it. (For comparison, ProV1x or Chrome Soft X would rip 20+ feet with a full gap or sand wedge.......) Partial wedges/pitches: This is where the Left Dash isn't quite the right ball, but I like it everywhere else, so I live with it. The Chrome Tour absolutely shines here! Absolutely incredible control and a very responsive feel. After just a couple shots, I felt like I knew exactly what it was going to do and felt full confidence that I would be able to hit a variety of shots with it, which is not something I can say about the Left Dash. I was easily hitting running chips and hop-and-stop pitches. I could flight a half-lob wedge from 40 yards or go high and let it land heavy. Really, really impressive around the greens. I wasn't really looking to make a ball change, but the Chrome Tour is really intriguing.

I've had the same question before, especially because I tend to hit it pretty dang high (about 105-110 swing speed). The AVX generally works well for me, but I can't get used to how squishy it feels. The Left Dash works great for me with the exception that I wish it flew a little lower. In terms of distance off the tee, I don't really see a significant difference between the two. The AVX is lower spinning than Left Dash, so it can compensate for any speed loss from the lower compression, or at least that's how I've thought about it. And FWIW, when I last did Ballnamic, it recommended both the AVX and the Left Dash for me (in addition to the Tour BX), so basically it seems like it's more of a "pick the ball you want" scenario.

Two sessions in on Neural Drive. Definitely a change from Full Speed Spectrum, when it's all max and step swings. One of the things that's going to be interesting is if some of the later phases start doing more max swings? I was at 97-98 on my max 195g swings and so far in Neural Drive, my top end appears to be 94-95. (Since it's "the hardest you would swing on the course" and not "come out of your shoes and lose your balance") As for skying it, I actually have had that same issue a couple times. In fact, I was doing one of the speed priming sessions and put an idiot mark on my driver! Ugh! I suspect that the movement of trying to swing hard might make me a little more steep than I otherwise would be. That being said, I do think I'm seeing some on-course gains. The 13th hole at my course is a downhill par 4 but is always directly into the prevailing NE wind. In the summer, driver can be too much because you might roll through the fairway and into the water. Personally, I've only ever reached the water a couple of times when it was really baked out. In the winter though, you need driver just for a reasonable chance at a mid-iron in since it's a muddy, sloppy mess from Dec-March. Well.. I... um. Yeah. I tagged this one. The watch is a little dark, but it's measured the drive at 320; you can see the ball just above my wrist and the water about 5 feet past that.

Just did my progress check following my second program. As expected, this progress check went better. Overall, it looks like I’m on a much slower (pun intended) journey than others. But if I can pick up 2 mph every few weeks, I’ll take it! Doing Neural Drive next, starting in a few days.

The 'Fusablend' cover is intriguing, but I can't fathom it will be anywhere near the greenside performance of any of the Tour B balls. But at $40, they are definitely proud of it! To me, it was definitely eyebrow-raising to see the $37/dz Tour Speed (urethane cover) was discontinued and the Tour Soft was raised to $40/dz but does not have a urethane cover

After my Foundations, it gave me the option between Neural Drive and Full Speed. I chose Full Speed and it seems to be going better for me than Foundations, but I guess we'll see... should have my Progress Check this weekend.

Same. Especially in the final stage of the program when you're using the same weight for Max and then Step. I'm routinely a little slower on step swings than Max swings. I'd have to check, but I don't think that was the case when I was doing SuperSpeed?

My jaw literally dropped when I saw that. The Tour Speed is $37/doz (yeah, yeah, discontinued, whatever) but there's no way the Tour Soft is as good a ball, performance-wise, as the Tour Speed. (I have a suspicion the Tour Speed was cannibalizing some ProV1 sales from people thinking it was a "budget ProV1." That ball was legit. Low-spin in the long game, reasonable greenside performance, not entirely a marshmallow...)

IRRC, they are one and the same and the progress check happens as part of the final session.

IIRC, Fitzpatrick has had to replace his shafts TWICE due to speed training... good problem to have, I suppose (that being said, most of the long drive guys swing Regular flex shafts)

any kind of speed training (Stack, Super Speed, or even just swinging your driver flat-out 20x a session/3 sessions/week) should result in more total speed through the bag, at least for full swings. When I did Super Speed a couple years ago, I saw minimal gains with driver, but pretty significant gains in my irons. My 7i picked up 5 mph clubhead speed!