MNUte

Updated to introduce myself, show you why colored and matt golf balls are quite important in Salt Lake, and lay out my testing wish list. If you have any particular questions or requests, please don't hesitate to ask!

Thanks for the insight! Honestly, I'm already curious to see if these balls end up in kind of a caveat category where they're great balls and highly recommended IF you play in dry conditions and IF you recognize that this ball might then only be a summer ball as opposed to an all-seasons one. I live in a dry state, so I probably can't accurately test the impacts of high humidity. But with how hot August can get in Utah, maybe I should leave a sleeve of these on a shelf in the garage during the testing period just to see if there's any impact to surface quality. If that ends up being the case, that might be another caveat to the recommendation, where they're great and highly recommended IF you're able to store them in cooler or drier conditions.

That's one of the things I'm thinking about how to test. Currently we're going through Utah's "I told you I'm a desert" phase of the year, where even in the morning it's hot and dry. Depending on when the balls arrive, I might be taking a bucket of water to the chipping and putting greens near my house.

Whoa there, excuses are an absolute sacred right. Just because they're not GOOD or VALID excuses have never stopped us before, so why should they now?

Let's go!! Absolutely thrilled to be testing these out and helping to provide some insight into some very bold claims Volvik is making with these. I'm here for all of you with this test, so please let me know what questions you have and I'll do my best to try and find answers along the way.

Hi! I’m Brian, an early-thirties attorney based in Salt Lake City, Utah. A native Minnesotan, I moved out here for college, outkicked my coverage with my amazing wife, and together we do our best to contain our son (2), pomsky (3) and heeler (2). While my dad tried to get me into golf growing up, it never quite stuck and I quickly traded my clubs in for a baseball bat. In the four years since getting back into the game, I’ve become a fairly consistent high 80s to low 90s golfer. I tend to struggle with consistency off the tee, flashing the occasional 270-yard drive on a perfect strike but more often than not fighting a slice and averaging closer to 240. My strength lies 125 yards and in, where my putting, wedge game and spinny Kirkland Signature V3s are at their best. I’ll occasionally play colored and matte golf balls to help track and find my ball, especially on days where the inversion, changing seasons, or conditions of the rough make visibility a challenge. But the matte offerings have often struggled around the greens and undermined the strongest parts of my game. With some of the bold claims being made about these Vivids, I’m excited to see if that’s no longer the case and if these can justify a place in my bag. As a member of Stonebridge Golf Club and its sister course, I have 45 unique holes to test balls out on in addition to several nearby ranges, practice bunkers and putting greens. My Testing Wish List: Visibility –I need to be able to track this ball in the air and spot it in the rough more easily than a glossy white ball. At the same time, I don’t want to end up like a SpongeBob character. Durability – with Volvik specifically claiming improved durability, I want to see how long a single ball can last on the course and out of the practice bunkers. The downside of the Kirkland’s are their durability, so Volvik needs to run away with this testing. Predictable/consistent workability around the greens – we all know claimed issues with matte golf balls when they get wet. Whether I’m able to get these out on a dewy morning or if I have to bring a bucket of water with me, these have to consistently perform on and around the greens. Extra credit – bonus points will come down to performance off the tee. Extra distance is nice, sure. But if it really can reduce side spin and set me up for good second shots, that will be a massive boost to its overall grade.

Having watched my F.I.L. swap out clubs consistently and my B.I.L. and friends upgrading their bags over time, I think I fall squarely into the "it depends on you" category. Some people take their clubs out onto the course expecting everything to go great immediately. When it doesn't, it significantly undermines their confidence in the club, which in turn impacts the speed with which they gain confidence in the club. Others take their clubs out understanding that it's a new club and something that will have to be adapted to and learned as time goes on. So a couple of learning curves don't hit them too hard.

I think this is a really big factor that is impacted by what you're looking for in the club. Used can often times be better for learning purposes and development since you can find pretty great deals on used clubs. But there's a cost to be paid in terms of settling and inconsistency. My irons and putter were both bought new, but my driver, 3 wood, 3 hybrid, and wedges were all used. The reason? I was confident in what I wanted in my irons and putter at the time of purchase and was able to find something that fit that. Whereas with where I was at in my game when I acquired them, I had no clue what I wanted in my long clubs and so was able to get the cheapest ones I could to start learning how to play them (my R1 driver and G400 3 wood were free and my Halo 3 hybrid was $40). And with my wedges, I wanted cheap clubs with good enough grooves that I could beat the crap out of them while I learned what the heck a short game was (free Silver Scott knockoff 48 degree which is my bump and run club, Bridgestone 52 degree that is a very limited use club, and SM8 58 degree that has become one of my most confident clubs). But I've put in the work and learned. I'm not great off the tee and not ready to replace my clubs there, but I have a much better idea of my needs whenever I am ready (e.g., I now know that I do better with woods than hybrids). And with my wedges, I'm probably getting to the point in my short game where DTC might be the way to go to get a bit more consistency club to club without having to sell my kid like I would for 3 Vokeys...

Yep. Also, OP, have you played any true "practice" rounds recently to bridge the gap between your practice sessions and your on course play? E.g. finding a cheap par 3 or muni course early morning or late at night where you can take time on the course to work through some of the things you're practicing. For me, I'm still a mess off the tee, which is why my handicap is still relatively similar to last years (alongside having a potty training toddler that's destroys my back). But what I have been able to do is go to the practice chipping & bunker range 5 minutes from my office. This season, I've focused solely on getting locked in from 125 yards and in, including being comfortable getting out of bunkers. I've then been able to go to the course I have a player's pass at (yay 9 holes for $10) and just play two or three balls under real game conditions. If I'm the only one on the course, I'll also throw a ball or two in a bunker or into a bad situation and work on getting out of it. Things change when you actually have a flag to get to, a different slope than what you're used to, etc. Doing that has helped me improve slowly and shoot my best score of the season this past weekend during a fully serious round (a 3 over 39 after 9 holes). I still messed up my tee shots on most of the holes, but was still able to get my ball to 125 and in without losing strokes. From there, i was so comfortable from my practice rounds putting me in similar spots that I played a lot more comfortably than i previously had and trusted myself to make the correct shots. That included hitting a 100 yard shot from a fairway bunker to within 6 feet, hitting a 30 yard shot to the middle of the green and making a long putt to save par (but at worst give me a two putt bogey). In turn, that helped me make better on course decisions (not trying to do a pin hunting flop and just taking the 30 yard shot to the middle of the green) which also saved strokes.

For me, it's adapting to course conditions. E.g., this past weekend, I shot a 91 on a tough but not impossible course. I was hitting it pretty well off the tee, making good contact overall, and putting alright. But I was struggling with how soggy some of the course was, or hitting from side-slopes. As a result, I was less confident in my shots and made plenty of mistakes that led to blow up holes (two doubles and a triple).

And on a different note still within the YouTube Golf sector, there's plenty of times where you see bias or agendas in the videos and it makes it hard to trust or fully believe what's being said. There's the times like with Grant Horvat being signed by TaylorMade, you know he's going to gush over the mini driver. Especially since he's one of the people skilled enough to use it off the deck. But it's still informational and fun because you know upfront that there's going to be a lot of positive spin. Then there's times like Club Champion's videos of Ian and Mike reviewing the Kirkland irons and balls: With the ball, they were very open to the idea of "well, you're going to have some fall off, but that's what you'd expect and for the money, it's an amazing value" (which is still probably a bit biased because the KSig performed nearly identically as the ProV1). With the irons, they came across as dismissive and already set against it. They acknowledged throughout the video that a lot of the issues with the Kirkland irons were common issues with hollow bodied irons, then still seemed to hold them specifically against the Kirkland irons. And there were a lot of snippy side comments, like Ian saying the engineering that went into the design "if you want to call it that," saying the wedge comparison to his SM10 is a top end Mercedes vs. a low end....(trails off). And worst of all was Mike's comment where "someone playing these irons are obviously not going to get fit, which is wrong." I get that you're in the fitting business, but coming in with that mentality is absolutely doing a disservice to a lot of golfers out there who are not try-hards and are just trying to get a decent quality brand new set for a fraction of the price being charged by the brands you fit for. So there are videos like that that make it hard to trust a lot of what's being said about a technique, club, ball, etc. And of course, the answer is to try stuff out for ourselves to the extent we're able to and try to form as good of an opinion on our own as we can.

The hard part with YouTube golf is that it's not tailored for you and so even the most general pieces of advice may help in one way but then cause an entire chain reaction of bad. And there's so many conflicting opinions and channels that it can be maddening. That being said, I really enjoy Danny Maude and have actually been surprised by how good Peter Finch's Swing Quest channel is. But rather than for a particular technique or tip, it's been more about how they're brilliant at rephrasing concepts or helping me look at my swing from a different perspective which in turn has helped me work through some stuff. E.g., with a lot of newer golfers, Danny will ask them their background and then hand them a soccer ball, tennis racket, medicine ball, etc. That really helped me take aspects from my baseball background (e.g., firing my hip) and apply them to golf. Or for Peter, his breakdowns of why you overemphasize motions or items in practice because your mind is probably tricking you into thinking you're doing more than you are was really helpful to show me some areas where I really wasn't pushing myself (me thinking my wrists were more forward than they were).

Adding to the dogpile, I personally like yellow or pink balls because they're the most consistently visible season to season. In Utah we get a full four seasons, including leaves on the ground, dried out burnt grass, the works. So unfortunately, white, red, green, blue, etc. don't really work all that well. The Vice splatter/bird-poop balls are particularly good at blending in. Much cheaper in the long run to just rock annoyingly vibrant yellow and pink balls, especially since I'm not good enough for the performance dropoffs from a white to color ball to matter.

This is where my mind went as well. 30 yards is generally my 4 oclock to 8 oclock movement pattern, but that changes if I'm on damp, spongy conditions vs. true Utah summer hard and dry. I'm not necessarily worrying about my speed since I can't tailor that on the course, just about the movement I have to make to get the ball close enough not to embarass myself.

Too many mind.