MGS Golf Ball Test

[jjfcpa]

1 hour ago, SmoothG said:

Two balls that I have not tried yet but am interested to try after seeing results is the Vice Pro and OnCore Elixr.  If you end up giving the Elixr a go, I'd be very interested to see a comparison post on your thoughts. 

I ordered the Elixir after reading the results.  It definitely seems to be an outlier and provide better than expected results.  

One thing I noticed about the Vice Pro is, according to the charts and my experience, it is a great ball for getting in the fairway.  I've used Snell Black, Tour B RX, and Vice Pro extensively indoors and can't see any differences except the Snell feels a little better off the putter.  The Vice Pro feels better off the irons.

 

Since I need distance, the Elixir may be a good option for me.  I'll let you know.  I hope they show up for my round on Saturday (3 days from now).

[jjfcpa]

Wouldn't it be great if any new or updated balls released in the future would be submitted to MGS for this same test methodology so we, as consumers, could evaluate them based on what we currently see in these charts.  I know it will never happen, but I know in my case, I will be very skeptical of claims made by ball manufacturers.

[tony@CIC]

I was watching the final round of the LPGA La event this past Sunday and up pops a Srixon irons ad with the "Most Wanted MGS logo on the ad. 

Would't be fun to start seeing the Titleist and other golf ball TV and print ads with "MGS Top Performer" logo on them. 

[GolfSpy BOS]

I thought the same thing - especially when the irons are actually 4 yards longer.  I've always felt the TP5X was a bit of a longer ball anyways - especially with irons, so this matches up with that.  I don't do any sort of measuring with most drives so it's difficult for me to tell if I'm longer/shorter with the driver, but with irons you clearly know the yardage into a green.

I’d wager a lot of it has to do with efficiency in flight from the dimple pattern.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JohnSmalls]

2 hours ago, mooremikea said:

It seems like they should almost be equal.  

 

1 hour ago, TR1PTIK said:

That is a bit of a puzzle.

I would venture to say it has to do with either manufacturing quality and/or dimple patterns and depth.  Or Dean Snell is a grey wizard and shall further be known as Gandalf.

[MaxEntropy]

One thing I think is missing, unless somehow I missed it, how did they place the balls in their respective categories (i.e. excellent, very good, etc.). I assume it is some combination of distance and shot area? Personally, I would like to see more details on that side of it.

Admittedly, I am out of town for work and have really only scanned the post, so it may be there.

1 minute ago, JohnSmalls said:

I would venture to say it has to do with either manufacturing quality and/or dimple patterns and depth.

I would guess that any difference that doesn't make logical sense has to be a result of aerodynamics. Once the ball has left the club face, aerodynamics is the only thing that really matters.

[jjfcpa]

If you read the comments... and they are growing daily, there a section in there where Tony explained how they came up with the categories and how the balls were assigned to each.

[TR1PTIK]

8 minutes ago, MaxEntropy said:

One thing I think is missing, unless somehow I missed it, how did they place the balls in their respective categories (i.e. excellent, very good, etc.). I assume it is some combination of distance and shot area? Personally, I would like to see more details on that side of it.

Admittedly, I am out of town for work and have really only scanned the post, so it may be there.

I would guess that any difference that doesn't make logical sense has to be a result of aerodynamics. Once the ball has left the club face, aerodynamics is the only thing that really matters.

Another thing not explained in the report is how they went about placing the balls on the tee. I would think that if you could identify the variances in physical properties prior to placing the ball on the tee and align them a certain way that the results would be different. Maybe not better, but certainly different. I submitted a comment to the blog regarding this so hopefully Tony will respond.

[knightsofnii]

I believe I will try some Pro V1X, and Some tour B X.  

The Snells, as far as they went, and as spinny as they spun, have a massive shot area compared to everything else.  Am I reading that right? 

[Kanoito]

3 hours ago, bens197 said:

I’m just going to throw this out there as an interlude.

This is a ridiculously comprehensive test that many of us will utilize for our own benefit.

Consider a donation for the effort. I’m not just saying this to sound all holier than thou. I’m sending something today because I believe in the mission these guys have established.

Carry on with your day...


Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

Agree to this. MGS helps me find a ball that keeps me on the fairway, means I have to spend less money buying balls... might as well pass the savings to MGS!

[sixcat]

3 hours ago, bens197 said:

I’m just going to throw this out there as an interlude.

This is a ridiculously comprehensive test that many of us will utilize for our own benefit.

Consider a donation for the effort. I’m not just saying this to sound all holier than thou. I’m sending something today because I believe in the mission these guys have established.

Carry on with your day...


Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

I am efforting a donation as we speak!  It's more than earned by the guys.

[Kenny B]

I missed all of this thread last week, and only got the announcement about the test last night; a little light reading before I fell asleep.  It did take me 1.5 hours to read all of your comments, thank you very much; most interesting!

The data in the test does not seem all that unusual, at least from my playing experiences.  Yes, I have a slower swing speed but soft balls fly less for me than higher compression balls like the test says.  That's good because the higher compression balls also spin more around the green, which I need too.  I am happy to play any of the tour balls; PV1 TP5, and Z-Star are my top choices.

I have a few of the KSig 3-piece balls left, but I did not find them to be a good ball for my game; definitely shorter and less spin.  I have plenty of the original KSig 4-piece balls, and I will stick with those until the next MGS ball test comes out.  It will probably take me that long to parse the data to select a few balls to consider.

Oh BTW, it's been rumored that if you lefties head to the southern hemisphere, the right-handed balls work just fine!  

[chisag]

2 minutes ago, Kenny B said:

I have a few of the KSig 3-piece balls left, but I did not find them to be a good ball for my game; definitely shorter and less spin.  I have plenty of the original KSig 4-piece balls, and I will stick with those until the next MGS ball test comes out.  It will probably take me that long to parse the data to select a few balls to consider.

 

... Intersting Kenny. I have tried plenty of balls that did not spin enough. But the Kirkland 3 piece is the only ball I have played that spun too much. I just cannot control short iron spin and balls a little offline draw/fade more than any other ball I have played. I do love the Kirkland 4 piece and still have a couple dozen left over but I gave the 3 piece balls to my wife that can use the additional spin. Obviously ymmv ...

[newballcoach]

Just getting to catch up from where I left off before the weekend. What an awesome test and response from the MGS community. I love having all this data to read over and check out. 

I am disappointed the Chrome Soft X finished so low. I have had some success with it, and do enjoy the soft feel, but I may need to look at other options. The lack of distance and spin in most areas is a concern. I have always liked the Srixon's and I have a combination of them and some Bridgestone's right now that I will have to hit into the woods to see if I figure out a new ball to play. I definitely like the way the Bridgestone Bx performed as well.

But I'm a guy who likes to save a bit of money. I buy last years golfballs on sale (or when there are sales) I don't like to pay full price for them, so maybe the oncore or snell are more up my alley. Even at their biggest discount numbers, they are still $40/dozen Canadian, while the Srixon is $50 and in stores, not a ton of savings there (and before any shipping costs).

Haven't had a chance to view the comments yet but as I am staring at a Snell Golf ad banner, I wonder how many are going to accuse MGS of selling out?

[chisag]

15 minutes ago, newballcoach said:

But I'm a guy who likes to save a bit of money. I buy last years golfballs on sale (or when there are sales) I don't like to pay full price for them, so maybe the oncore or snell are more up my alley. Even at their biggest discount numbers, they are still $40/dozen Canadian, while the Srixon is $50 and in stores, not a ton of savings there (and before any shipping costs).

Haven't had a chance to view the comments yet but as I am staring at a Snell Golf ad banner, I wonder how many are going to accuse MGS of selling out?

 

... I now I am sounding like a broken record but not only are the Snells a great deal hen you buy at least 3 dozen drops the price to under $30 but the Maxfli Tour balls are on sale thru 5/4 at 2 for $50. Normally $34.99 so really a great deal on a ball that tested well. And keep in mind the variances of balls that may or may not have some off center issues, the Maxfli's are aligned for optimum performance off the tee or on the green where you can use the balanced alignment aid. MGS did not align the Maxfli's during the test and I would think there is a very good chance their test performance would be even better had they done so. But I understand why they didn't to keep things equal. 

... I have been writing reviews for over 20 years now and have been accused of "selling out" too many times to count, especially at WRX where I stopped posting reviews. I have absolutely no doubt MGS accepting advertising with Snell has zero influence on anything they do. It can be a catch 22 for the OEM when a site loves their product and they want to take advantage of the good press, at least for conspiracy theorists. 

[poprocksncoke]

Well looks like I'm going to have to get rid of those refurbished balls 

 

Been thinking about trying out the new Maxfli balls but was waiting for this, gonna have to head to Dick's this weekend 

[sgold7]

I love data and I'm glad the MGS crew gave us all of theirs! I'm also a fan of trying to use the data to draw my own conclusions; when my conclusions are corroborated by the MGS crew it's better than me going into my spreadsheets with preconceived notions. 

Biases:

I used the Pro Plus in the first half of '18 and V1x's in the second half. I'm a huge Tiger fan so I'm partial to the Bridgestone as well, though I do enjoy looking down at the clean cursive "Titleist" on the ball. I play Mizuno clubs and used a Mizuno baseball glove since high school and it's been 10 years with that glove still playing softball, so I do like their products. 

Lastly, my game is steadily improving from never breaking 100 last year at this time to shooting sub-90s in the hardest course in the area now with a career low of 81. I smash the ball, over 115 MPH swing speed (improved from 116 to 121 thanks to the Super Speed sticks and documented my progress in that thread)--- but the problem is it doesn't go straight. I fight a major slice and use mostly 3W off the tee because I can still get it out there around 265+. 

My ball flight is getting to be much more consistent (draw) and my touch around the green is improving. I love the way the V1x's feel off the putter and around the green. "They Say" you should start around the green and work back when testing balls, so I'm hesitant to switch from the V1x--- but I'm not doing my due diligence if I'm not running the numbers myself and testing a few others. So here's what I did:

I took all the balls I'd consider (tour balls from Bridgestone, Titleist, Snell, Srixon, & Vice) and found Z-Scores in each category I deemed important for each phase of the game. I then weighted each component that was tested and got a final Z-Score (real quick Z-Score primer: 0 is average. +1 is better than 66% of the comp. +2 is better than 95% of the comp. Minuses are inverse.). For the driver I weighted distance the most, dispersion the second most, etc. For the wedges I didn't weight distance at all, weighted shot area and offline pretty heavily--- though I did weigh the STDev of the distance (I don't care how far the wedges go, as long as they go the same distance every time). 

I'd be more than happy to go as in depth on my weightings if you guys want to get into the minutia but I'll try and keep it a bit less granular for post one...

Driver:

 (the final column on the right is 'Distance 50%, Offline 25%, and spin 25%'. I left launch out of the calculation because if something is long and straight I don't really care if it's high or low launch). Numbers at the bottom, top is average, bottom is STDEV.

Driver	Carry	Offline	Launch	Spin	zCarry	zOff	zLAng	zSpin	Grade
Snell MTB-X	289	8.6	12.3	2206	2.24	-0.66	0.27	0.57	1.09
Bridgestone Tour BX	286	3.4	12.4	2171	1.34	0.67	1.08	0.90	1.06
Srixon Qstar Tour	283	1.7	12.3	2129	0.44	1.11	0.27	1.29	0.82
Titelist Pro V1x	282	4	12.3	2254	0.14	0.52	0.27	0.13	0.23
Bridgestone Tour B RX	282	7.9	12.3	2163	0.14	-0.48	0.27	0.98	0.19
Titelist Pro V1	281	5.1	12.4	2240	-0.16	0.24	1.08	0.26	0.04
Srixon Zstar	281	3	12.2	2307	-0.16	0.78	-0.54	-0.37	0.02
Vice Pro	279	0.5	12.3	2270	-0.76	1.41	0.27	-0.02	-0.03
Snell MTB Black	280	5.4	12.3	2205	-0.46	0.16	0.27	0.58	-0.04
Bridgestone Tour B XS	282	6.4	12.1	2367	0.14	-0.09	-1.35	-0.93	-0.18
Mizuno RB Tour	285	11.2	12.1	2460	1.04	-1.32	-1.35	-1.80	-0.25
Bridgestone Tour B RXS	278	0.6	12.4	2331	-1.06	1.39	1.08	-0.59	-0.33
Srixon Zstar XV	281	12.5	12.4	2248	-0.16	-1.65	1.08	0.18	-0.44
Vice Pro Plus	276	9.1	12.2	2171	-1.66	-0.78	-0.54	0.90	-0.80
Mizuno RB Tour X	278	11.1	12	2492	-1.06	-1.30	-2.16	-2.09	-1.37
	281.5	6.03	12.2	2267.6
	3.33	3.91	0.12	107.1

Takeaways & Questions:

If you don't care about anything but distance, the Snell MTB-X is the no brainier, but that strong negative grade in zOff gives me hesitation (Offline pretty significantly more than the other top-tier driving balls). The BStone Tour BX and the QStar Tour would be the balls I'd play if I only did this analysis on driver. The Titleist and the other Bridgestone right behind were good to see. There seem to be 5-6 balls that are a clear notch or two above the rest---but as everyone and their mother says regarding fittings, focus on the wedges and irons. 

7 Iron

7 Iron	Carry	Carry STD	Offline	Offline STD	Shot Area	Langle	Spin	Carry	Carry STD	Offline	Offline STD	Shot Area	Langle	Spin
Srixon Zstar XV	195.7	0.81	2.49	3.02	31	16.7	5985	-0.33	1.86	2.08	-0.21	1.04	-0.71	0.52	0.83
Titelist Pro V1x	197.3	1.41	5.48	2.07	37	16.7	6022	0.24	1.15	-0.16	0.68	0.93	-0.71	0.60	0.57
Bridgestone Tour B RXS	203.4	2.65	4.37	1.41	47	17.5	4994	2.38	-0.32	0.67	1.29	0.74	1.62	-1.74	0.50
Bridgestone Tour B XS	193.8	3.07	4.49	0.81	31	16.6	6000	-0.99	-0.82	0.58	1.85	1.04	-1.00	0.55	0.37
Mizuno RB Tour X	193.8	1.69	5.76	2.21	47	16.7	6365	-0.99	0.82	-0.36	0.55	0.74	-0.71	1.39	0.36
Srixon Zstar	196	1.12	7.38	1.98	28	17	5634	-0.22	1.49	-1.58	0.76	1.10	0.17	-0.28	0.21
Vice Pro	196.9	2.06	5.76	2.13	55	17	5619	0.10	0.38	-0.36	0.62	0.59	0.17	-0.31	0.17
Mizuno RB Tour	192.5	2.25	5.45	2.28	65	16.5	6423	-1.45	0.15	-0.13	0.48	0.41	-1.29	1.52	0.16
Vice Pro Plus	196.9	2.65	6.14	2.67	89	17.1	5510	0.10	-0.32	-0.65	0.12	-0.04	0.46	-0.56	-0.23
Srixon Qstar Tour	199.7	2.79	2.55	4.18	147	17.6	5045	1.08	-0.49	2.03	-1.29	-1.12	1.92	-1.62	-0.23
Snell MTB-X	194	2.06	6.48	4.01	104	16.6	6134	-0.92	0.38	-0.90	-1.13	-0.32	-1.00	0.86	-0.34
Titelist Pro V1	196.3	3.25	6.16	3.34	137	16.85	5968	-0.11	-1.04	-0.66	-0.51	-0.93	-0.27	0.48	-0.46
Bridgestone Tour B RX	200.6	2.93	5.07	4.39	162	17.4	5188	1.40	-0.66	0.15	-1.49	-1.40	1.33	-1.30	-0.55
Snell MTB Black	196.1	3.27	5.69	3.64	150	17.1	5691	-0.19	-1.06	-0.31	-0.79	-1.18	0.46	-0.15	-0.61
Bridgestone Tour B X	196.4	3.65	5.81	3.79	173	16.8	5773	-0.08	-1.51	-0.40	-0.93	-1.60	-0.42	0.04	-0.75
	196.63	2.38	5.27	2.80	86.87	16.94	5756.73
	2.84	0.84	1.34	1.07	53.68	0.34	438.65

Takeaways:

I weighted six categories equally for the 7-iron test: Carry, Carry STDEV, Offline, Offline STD, Shot Area, Spin. So if you think about it, it's 2/6 distance, 3/6 accuracy, and 1/6 spin. Maybe I underrated spin a tad, and when re-adjusting it to make spin more important, nothing unexpected happened: The Mizuno balls jumped up to .57 and .44, the BStone Tour RXS dropped from .5 to .07. 

Frankly, I wasn't totally sure what I'm 'looking for' with regards to a longish iron like this. For me, a 7-iron is 175 yards so there isn't really too much to conclude regarding this. Good to see the V1x grade well. The Bridgestone Tour B X with the lowest ranking grade is a surprise after it was the best non-Snell driving ball. The dispersion grades on the Tour BX were all very positive with the driver but very low with the 7-iron. But the overall dispersion offline with the driver was 3.4 yards and with the 7-iron it's only 3.79. So the dispersion is similar, its just that the average dispersion with the driver is way above 3.4 while the 7-iron dispersion average is below. Interesting none-the-less. 

Wedges:

Wedges	Spin	Spin STD	Carry STD	Offline	Offline STD	Shot Area	Spin	Spn STD	Cry STD	Offline	Off STD	Area
Vice Pro Plus	8993	77	4	0.07	9.3	11	-0.92	0.60	0.70	1.67	0.45	0.68	0.53
Titelist Pro V1	9519	44	4.5	0.29	8	28	0.63	1.11	0.49	0.73	0.73	-0.63	0.51
Bridgestone Tour B X	9523	58	4	0.3	12.1	17	0.64	0.89	0.70	0.68	-0.14	0.22	0.50
Titelist Pro V1x	9524	63	3.7	0.52	8.2	20	0.65	0.81	0.82	-0.26	0.69	-0.01	0.45
Snell MTB Black	9294	72	4.7	0.45	9	6	-0.03	0.67	0.41	0.04	0.52	1.07	0.45
Bridgestone Tour B XS	9364	58	8.8	0.52	5	8	0.18	0.89	-1.23	-0.26	1.37	0.91	0.31
Mizuno RB Tour X	9887	125	5.8	0.55	12	13	1.71	-0.15	-0.03	-0.39	-0.12	0.53	0.26
Srixon Zstar	9341	168	1.5	0.62	8	24	0.11	-0.81	1.70	-0.69	0.73	-0.32	0.12
Vice Pro	9147	104	5.8	0.59	7.6	10	-0.46	0.18	-0.03	-0.56	0.82	0.76	0.12
Bridgestone Tour B RX	8886	86	3.8	0.12	10.9	36	-1.23	0.46	0.78	1.46	0.11	-1.24	0.06
Snell MTB-X	9641	103	5.5	0.58	21.5	12	0.99	0.20	0.09	-0.52	-2.15	0.61	-0.13
Bridgestone Tour B RXS	8754	143	7.4	0.36	15.3	14	-1.62	-0.42	-0.67	0.42	-0.83	0.45	-0.44
Srixon Zstar XV	9421	138	7.5	0.47	9.5	54	0.34	-0.35	-0.71	-0.05	0.41	-2.63	-0.50
Mizuno RB Tour	9554	263	11.6	0.39	15	32	0.73	-2.28	-2.35	0.30	-0.76	-0.93	-0.88
Srixon Qstar Tour	8718	232	7.4	1.05	20	13	-1.72	-1.80	-0.67	-2.54	-1.83	0.53	-1.34
	9304.4	115.6	5.7	0.5	11.4	19.9
	340.1	64.6	2.5	0.2	4.7	13.0

 

Takeaways: 

I just did an equal-weighting of the six factors here, which brings it to accuracy in 4/6 (carry STD, offline, offline STD, and shot area) and spin in 2/6 (spin and spin STD, though you could argue spin STD is more in the accuracy category. Regardless, the Vice Pro Plus graded out very well---but had one of the worst spin ratings. I should have probably weighted spin much higher as the accuracy numbers were so close together. 

There were 4 balls that graded very well in the spin category without any severe negatives: ProV1, V1x, BStone Tour B, and Mizuno Tour X. The Mizuno Tour X had the highest spin but graded out slightly negative in aggregate of the rest of the accuracy categories. The three others all had near-identical spin numbers (the V1 was the most consistent spinner) and the highest overall grade aside from the Vice Pro Plus. 

Questions: 

Before I go into the final table (an aggregate of all three shots) I'd like to pose this question:

*How would you weight each category for each swing? Meaning, would you keep the wedges at a 6-category average? Or would you raise the spin weighting to, say, 50% and then you have 50% spin and 50% accuracy? With the driver, is distance way more important than accuracy? Should i have 75% distance and 25% accuracy? Or maybe only 25% distance? I'm not expecting the weightings to change the overall findings too much, but I'd be happy to run different numbers. 

Final Table (fourth column is a 40/20/40 weighting, the last column is 33% each):

Ball	Driver	7-Iron	Wedge		40/20/40	33
Bridgestone Tour BX	1.06	0.37	0.31		0.62	0.58
Titelist Pro V1x	0.23	0.57	0.45		0.39	0.42
Snell MTB-X	1.10	-0.34	-0.13		0.32	0.21
Titelist Pro V1	0.04	-0.46	0.51		0.13	0.03
Srixon Zstar	0.02	0.21	0.12		0.10	0.12
Vice Pro	-0.03	0.17	0.12		0.07	0.08
Snell MTB Black	-0.04	-0.61	0.45		0.04	-0.07
Bridgestone Tour B RX	0.19	-0.55	0.06		-0.01	-0.10
Bridgestone Tour B XS	-0.19	-0.75	0.50		-0.02	-0.15
Vice Pro Plus	-0.80	-0.23	0.53		-0.15	-0.17
Bridgestone Tour B RXS	-0.33	0.50	-0.44		-0.21	-0.09
Srixon Zstar XV	-0.45	0.83	-0.50		-0.21	-0.04
Srixon Qstar Tour	0.82	-0.23	-1.34		-0.25	-0.25
Mizuno RB Tour X	-1.38	0.36	0.26		-0.38	-0.25
Mizuno RB Tour	-0.26	0.16	-0.88		-0.42	-0.33

So we went over some of the potential issues within each category but generally speaking, however you weight these, good driving balls will grade good and bad driving balls will grade poor. Lets not overcomplicate things too much... 

Takeaways:

The Bridgestone Tour BX has 'won' the competition! Right? Well, maybe. 

When the Snell guy comes out and says that all tour balls are good off the tee and we should be focusing on 100 yards and in, it's important to take note---especially considering Snell had the longest ball. When I miss-hit a drive, whether it's a V1x, a Bridgestone, a Snell or a tennis ball, it's missing 50 yards right. Period. So I put a lot more weighting into the non-driving stats. 

Because I value the iron and wedge play more, if I had to only use this data to make a decision... I'd probably be sticking with the V1x. Throughout every category across all shots it only has two slight negative grades (nothing worse than a -.3). The Tour BX had the highest iron carry standard deviation---which means the distance on iron shots is the least consistent of any ball. This is a major issue. It also had a pretty strong negative grade in the 'offline' category which means not only is there distance variance but there's side to side variance culminating in a shot area grade of -1.6, the worst of any ball. That's a major red flag. 

The other balls that will have me giving them a bit of consideration are polar opposites of each other: The Snell MTB-X and the Mizuno RB Tour X. One is the longest ball off the tee with negative iron and wedge grades (Snell). The other is a short ball off the tee with all kinds of inconsistencies (offline more than any ball but 2 with the least consistent launch angle and the least consistent spin numbers) but is a very accurate iron ball and is the highest-spinning wedge ball. I'm probably more interested in the Mizuno than the Snell but they both are intriguing. 

Lastly, aside from the Bridgestone BX and the Pro V1x, the Srizon ZStar is the only ball to grade positively in all three categories. The issue is it grades worse than the V1x in pretty much every single way. It's slightly shorter and less consistent on the tee (though slightly more accurate), slightly shorter and a good bit less accurate as a 7-iron (with less spin), and although it does have a more consistent carry distance it spins way less and is offline way more in the wedge play. 

In conclusion, my numbers backed up the MGS test pretty consistently. If I had to apply these balls to the grading scale MGS used it would look like this:

Excellent: Pro V1x - simply no faults. The only one that can say that.

Very good (would be excellent if not for one decent to significant sized fault): BStone Tour BX (7-iron accuracy is dead last), Srixson ZStar (7-iron accuracy is bad, wedge accuracy is below-average without plus spin)

Intriguing (Some major faults but so good in other areas, I'd consider giving them a shot): Mizuno RB Tour (The spiniest ball in both the 7-iron and wedge category by a wide margin, very accurate with the 7-iron ... but its significantly the worst driving ball (tied for second shortest carry (though a low launch angle helps but that's offset by more spin) and very poor accuracy grades in the driver category.

The ProV1 is also a quality ball but I know from prior testing I'm V1x >V1 so I didn't focus too much on the V1.

Hopefully a few people got thru this long-winded post and got something out of it. Is there anything else you guys would want me to take a look at regarding different weightings or adding any other balls? 

Cheers!

[mr.hicksta]

2 hours ago, newballcoach said:

Just getting to catch up from where I left off before the weekend. What an awesome test and response from the MGS community. I love having all this data to read over and check out. 

I am disappointed the Chrome Soft X finished so low. I have had some success with it, and do enjoy the soft feel, but I may need to look at other options. The lack of distance and spin in most areas is a concern. I have always liked the Srixon's and I have a combination of them and some Bridgestone's right now that I will have to hit into the woods to see if I figure out a new ball to play. I definitely like the way the Bridgestone Bx performed as well.

But I'm a guy who likes to save a bit of money. I buy last years golfballs on sale (or when there are sales) I don't like to pay full price for them, so maybe the oncore or snell are more up my alley. Even at their biggest discount numbers, they are still $40/dozen Canadian, while the Srixon is $50 and in stores, not a ton of savings there (and before any shipping costs).

Haven't had a chance to view the comments yet but as I am staring at a Snell Golf ad banner, I wonder how many are going to accuse MGS of selling out?

Oh there are plenty of ruffled feathers for sure along with those who are yapping 'sell out'. But I don't think that's the case at all. Because if it were, the same could easily be said about Titleist since the Pro V1(X) received similar marks. That said though, I think the most important thing this test highlighted was the huge disparity in performance, which can make a difference for most amateur golfers. It will be interesting to see if the MGS test results in more thorough testing methodologies. If it does, that's a good thing because I believe more data = more informed purchases. Lastly, I've always laughed at how tribal people get over golf gear. Seems like most amateurs would be best served to play what will help them achieve lower scores and not try to get social media brownie points from a golf equipment/ball manufacturers. 

[PMookie]

When selecting balls that I have, or would play, a major dilemma presents itself: the distance of the Bridgestone Tour X off driver is about 9 yards longer than TP5X, but when switching to 7 iron, the distance and accuracy of the TP5X is significantly better! Wedge-wise, the Bridgestone had a smaller area offline by 6 yards.
One thing I find interesting in the wedge info is the MTB Black was offline by an avg of .453 yards with a shot area of 5.7 yards, but the TP5X was only offline by .007 more, .460, but had a shot area four times larger, 22.85 yards. What the heck?! More front-to-back distance dispersion????


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[RickyBobby_PR]

I’ll be curious to see if anyone here switches their ball out that are in the good,fair or bad categories to one of the other two and how it affects their game and/or score positive or negative 

[txgolfjunkie]

@sgold7  So I spent the last two hours creating my own rankings based on the fast swing speed. I'm sorry I didn't do the slow swing speed but this is time consuming without the ability of having the raw data in excel format.

So my struggle was the statistical weight of each category. Should there be equal weight on the ball speed (difference of only 2.75% from top to bottom) and carry (6.5% difference) for the driver as the offline which showed a range of over 1000% and a shot area of over 1700%? Also, should the launch angle, which only showed a difference of 0.47* from the lowest to the highest, carry equal weight? For all three areas, I wanted to see which was the most consistent, not necessarily raw distance or super low spin or straightest. 

For the driver, with the small differences in ball speed and carry, I gave more weight on the spin (lower is better for me), offline, offline st dev, and shot area. 

For the 7 iron, it was the same issue...speed only saw a 1.7% change from top to bottom with carry at the same 6.5%. There wasn't much difference in the offline among the top, so more weight was given to the offline std dev. Spin (less is more for me), Shot area and carry st dev were given the most weight. 

I have my impact ranking (ball speed and spin) and my landing ranking (Carry, Offline and Area). Both actual and std dev were ranked with more weight on the actual than std dev. 

And if someone could show me how to upload my excel tables, I'd gladly share them with every over. My rankings are a little different than Sgold7 simply due to my personal weighting

[sgold7]

@txgolfjunkie Good point, I only did mine for the 115 MPH swing speed as that's the closer data point to my own. 

As far as creating a table goes, copy/paste your excel data into "tabelizer" (google: tabelizer, paste your data into the large field, click 'tabalize' and then you can copy/paste your new HTML table into the post. Pretty simple. 

Seems like we had a similar strategy but we eached used our own gut feel with regard to weightings. 

How did you weight your final table? Regarding Driver v. 7i v. Wedge? 

[StrokerAce]

I cannot say this loud or strongly enough....

If you haven't yet, scan the comments at the end of the article and look for those where Tony responded.  

He has some fantastic responses to fair and legitimate questions.

Well worth your time.  WELL worth it.

[00sportsman]

3 minutes ago, GolfSpy Stroker said:

I cannot say this loud or strongly enough....

If you haven't yet, scan the comments at the end of the article and look for those where Tony responded.  

He has some fantastic responses to fair and legitimate questions.

Well worth your time.  WELL worth it.

Absolutely.  I just got done reading them.  I don't think I have a question that he hasn't already answered, and there's some great information in his responses that you don't necessarily get from the report.  Almost as valuable as the report itself.

[txgolfjunkie]

Edit: Still working on table formatting. 

My rankings show a DTC at the top...actually 3 of the top 7 are DTC...just not the ones you might think. 

[russtopherb]

2 hours ago, mr.hicksta said:

 Lastly, I've always laughed at how tribal people get over golf gear. Seems like most amateurs would be best served to play what will help them achieve lower scores and not try to get social media brownie points from a golf equipment/ball manufacturers. 

[Sluggo42]

Wow - so much analytic work going on!

seems to me that this is almost overkill to the Nth degree. These stats are derived from a robot that hits pretty close to the same every time.    I don’t... does 3-8 yards difference .... sometimes,... make that much of a difference? I’m playing a wad of ProV’s right now and I like em. I played a wad of chrome softs a few months ago and I liked em too. But it seems this report will make everyone sell them for next to nothing because they’re too “soft”. But how I shot a -1 using those junk chrome softs is unfathomable isn’t it? I also shot a 96 at the same track with Pro Vees. Whaaaat? How can that be?

I think the best piece of advice from the whole enchilada was to “pick a ball and play it”.  Unfortunately tho, we’ll probably never know if any handicaps make a big move based on use of a single brand of ball. I think I already knew the PV1x and the srixon Z were good balls. I suppose it’s nice to learn there are lots of other “good” balls out there at bargain prices too. I’m just not good enough to make a ball decision to use exclusively from now on. 

Its all cool Info and a great piece for sure - will it affect average scores significantly? I doubt it...

[PlaidJacket]

I've made an initial pass through the 2019 Golf Ball Buyers Guide. Very impressive and detailed I thought. I know the MGS staff must have put in many long hours to pull this off.  I was surprised by the Callaway showing. Not surprising that PV1 and PV1x are in the Excellent category. 

For my game I think most any ball from Excellent to Very Good will play without much difference day to day. Even a few Good ranked balls such as MG-C4, K-Sig play well I've found. Scored some of my best rounds ever with these Good balls. One point I'll make and have done so before is that; Tour Pros don't have some mysterious 6th sense that us lowly amateurs are missing. It's been written many times how Pros just know or can "feel" minuscule differences in a ball for example where people like us simply can't. Hog wash. The difference is they have an army of folks who micro manage ever detail of their game and equipment. Including making sure the balls they put in play are as close to perfect as humanly possible. The rest of us get the culls. LOL

[THEZIPR23]

I have played a lot of the balls on this report and there are many that I haven't played. My individual results fit right in line with the results of the test. Some are better than others, some work for me that won't work for you. As with everything that MGS does it is a starting point, granted this one is like starting 100 yard dash 50 yards ahead of everyone else, but it still is just a starting point. Do what you would like with the data, I think the more data the better, but it is not the end game.

 

Individual results will vary. 

[Kor.A.Door]

11 hours ago, MattF said:

So, my brand of choice for the past few years is still coming up trumps. But combining the data on the tables to get closer to my swing speed it looks like I need to play 2 balls, the MTB-X off the tee and the MTB Black everywhere else.

I wonder if Snell can come up with a ball that combines both? 

I need to restock and think I'll get 2 dozen of one and 3 dozen of the other and see what happens.

Thanks to all the staff for all the hard work.

Matt, I don’t know if you saw my post on the MTB X, but in my review of it, I said I like the X off the tee and on the green, but prefer the black for everything in between. So I feel the same way as you, let’s combine them. I have been using the MTB X for the last few rounds just to give it a really good effort with it. I do like it. After this ball testing I will stick with the X, and then use the Black during the winter months as it is softer, but with the cold temps it will feel firmer. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by Kor.A.Door