PRACTICE balls from Taylor Made

[DriverBreaker]

1 hour ago, sirchunksalot said:

I used Epsom salt. I was amazed at how much it took, but it worked good. 

It does take way more than you think it would.

[Shankster]

Here we go again @Lacassem... talking bout practice... 

(just messing around, sorry for the interruption) please return to your normally scheduled Taylormade Practice Ball thread.

[TBT]

11 minutes ago, Shankster said:

Here we go again @Lacassem... talking bout practice... 

(just messing around, sorry for the interruption) please return to your normally scheduled Taylormade Practice Ball thread.

 

[GolfSpy_SHARK]

26 minutes ago, Shankster said:

Here we go again @Lacassem... talking bout practice... 

(just messing around, sorry for the interruption) please return to your normally scheduled Taylormade Practice Ball thread.

Every time I see practice I say it in my head with a Jim Mora voice

[NC Golfer]

Good conversation on how these balls are out of balance. But, how do these play for the average hack trying to get a taste of urethane at a lower cost?

[sirchunksalot]

33 minutes ago, NC Golfer said:

Good conversation on how these balls are out of balance. But, how do these play for the average hack trying to get a taste of urethane at a lower cost?

I'm honestly happy with them as someone who is playing off a 26 handicap. I haven't seen any go way offline, any lost balls I've had have all come down to my swing. I hit those shots so bad they were gone the second they contacted the face.  The performance around the green is extremely good, I've had plenty of shots that have taken a couple of hops and stopped. Putting wise, I've averaged less than 2 putts a hole my last 10 rounds (1.96). 

[golfish!]

16 hours ago, sirchunksalot said:

Like @ChasingScratch, I want to thank @downlowkey for bringing up the balance issue and prompting me to do one. I can honestly say, I have never done this. As someone who's currently sporting a 26 handicap, I have prioritized other issues but it's nice to know if there's a issue with these balls. 

I've got 5 dozen of the TP5x Pix but for the purpose of this test I only opened 2 dozen of them. These will be the ones that get priority to go in my bag and should last for a while. 

The first bag I opened, I found 7 that were perfectly balanced, 4 that tended to return slowly to the same general area, and one that was bad. The second bag, all 12 had balance points (I looked for 4) that were in different areas and separated pretty well. I did relegate one to the practice bag due to a defect in the cover. 

 

Yep I found a few like that with excess paint in one spot. Probably dripped from the sprayer or something. Interestingly I thought with the check go pro that the paint mark would be along the equator of the line along the heavy axis of the ball but it wasnt. Probably shows the paint doesnt have that much effect on the balance of the ball at least. 

2 hours ago, NC Golfer said:

Good conversation on how these balls are out of balance. But, how do these play for the average hack trying to get a taste of urethane at a lower cost?

These will play fine for the average golfer. The whole point of this post was not that the issue would cause major offline hits or high scores. More of TM claiming that these are the same as regular balls just at a discounted price. I used the CGP to check a dozen each of 2021 ProV1x and the 2020 TP5 Pix PRACTICE and found none that were perfectly balanced ( all balls were checked multiple times to see if a different heavy spot emerged). What the CGP won't really tell you is how badly off balance they are. I went out and used my CGP'ed ProV1x yesterday and shot the worst score I have had in a while. Most likely attributed to my being off rhythm since I walked the last few rounds with my Motocaddy and rode in a cart yesterday so I could bring my daughter. Could also be that my daughter was there and my mind is subconsciously focused on keeping her safe on the course lol.

[downlowkey]

No Putts Given - May 18, 2021

Around the 22:30 mark, Tony shares an interesting ball construction update they are seeing from a number of manufacturers. Specifically, factories have started color matching/blending cores/mantles. Tony’s industry contacts have confirmed that brands are taking notice of consumer directed QC studies like MGS Ball Lab, and in his opinion, the recent tendency toward color matching may very well represent an intentional effort to obscure defects.

Interesting stuff...

 

[golfish!]

Yeah I heard that. Instead of fixing the problem, let's just mask it. 

[golfish!]

Also @GolfSpy_CS Just realized that you're one of the new mods. Congrats again and have fun! Now even more PHD? lol

[DriverBreaker]

On 5/20/2021 at 1:59 PM, chisag said:

 

... Great stuff! I love we don't just talk about it but do our best to find the truth for our game and you have taken it to another level.   Fwiw, I have emailed a contact in the Ball Engineering Dept at Taylor Made. Sales reps and Marketing guys have a job to do but I have found Engineers are much more reliable. For instance Sales Reps are usually left in the dark about updates and changes until absolutely necessary because it is tough to walk into a store and say "you only have one set of T100 iron in stock so let me send you 2 more sets so you have some to display when these are sold" if they know Titleist is just about to issue a press release about a new T100 series iron. 

... I will always remember the original Hi Bore driver that the VP's of Engineering were so excited about BUT were not quite ready to be released because they had not finalized the design. It performed very well on center hits but not high on the face or on the toe and they needed more time. They were over ridden by Sales and the Hi Bore was released to lots of good AND bad reviews. The 2nd generation fixed the toe hits and was better in every way with the exception of balls hit high on the face did not perform well and again the engineers did not want it released. So it got even more bad reviews and by the time Cleveland released the 3rd version that was what the engineers had envisioned performing very well on center and all mishits, the damage had already been done and few bought it so the design was scrapped. The engineers were furious. 

... So I am hoping to get a response from the engineers in the ball department concerning exactly what balls are released as PRACTICE balls. They may not be able to respond but I am hoping to hear something by next week.  

@chisag any word back from the TaylorMade engineers yet?

I tried playing around with measuring the <100 milligrams today on my digital kitchen scale.  Practically impossible to do so.  I was going to see if I put some duct tape on the light side of the ball if it rotated over a bit (like horizontal balance with the heavy side).  Problem is, I don't know how much the duct tape is weighing.  From the Bryson video, they use lead tape.  I'll have to order some so I can get a more standard metric (some lead tape brands will tell you how much 1" weighs for example).  

Not saying any of this will have any practical significance that we mere mortals could tell, but its a fun experiment to chase down.  Bryson missed putts all week long, so even he, with perfectly balanced golf balls still misses them.  I'm just more curious to see how off balance a ball is and what is that tipping point to see when it actually makes a visible difference in how it plays. 

23 minutes ago, downlowkey said:

No Putts Given - May 18, 2021

Around the 22:30 mark, Tony shares an interesting ball construction update they are seeing from a number of manufacturers. Specifically, factories have started color matching/blending cores/mantles. Tony’s industry contacts have confirmed that brands are taking notice of consumer directed QC studies like MGS Ball Lab, and in his opinion, the recent tendency toward color matching may very well represent an intentional effort to obscure defects.

Interesting stuff...

 

Hmmmmm, interesting indeed...

 

4 minutes ago, golfish! said:

Also @GolfSpy_CS Just realized that you're one of the new mods. Congrats again and have fun! Now even more PHD? lol

Yes sir!  Us science types seem to love golf.

[chisag]

Just now, GolfSpy_CS said:

@chisag any word back from the TaylorMade engineers yet?

I tried playing around with measuring the <100 milligrams today on my digital kitchen scale.  Practically impossible to do so.  I was going to see if I put some duct tape on the light side of the ball if it rotated over a bit (like horizontal balance with the heavy side).  Problem is, I don't know how much the duct tape is weighing.  From the Bryson video, they use lead tape.  I'll have to order some so I can get a more standard metric (some lead tape brands will tell you how much 1" weighs for example).  

Not saying any of this will have any practical significance that we mere mortals could tell, but its a fun experiment to chase down.  Bryson missed putts all week long, so even he, with perfectly balanced golf balls still misses them.  I'm just more curious to see how off balance a ball is and what is that tipping point to see when it actually makes a visible difference in how it plays. 

 

... Nothing yet and to be honest I may not hear anything. No use repeating the TM company line and if it is a worst case scenario and practice balls are indeed quality rejects, I would not expect that admission. In person at the PGA Show they may go off record but not in an email. That said, ya never know and I am still hoping for a reply. 

[golfish!]

1 hour ago, GolfSpy_CS said:

@chisag any word back from the TaylorMade engineers yet?

I tried playing around with measuring the <100 milligrams today on my digital kitchen scale.  Practically impossible to do so.  I was going to see if I put some duct tape on the light side of the ball if it rotated over a bit (like horizontal balance with the heavy side).  Problem is, I don't know how much the duct tape is weighing.  From the Bryson video, they use lead tape.  I'll have to order some so I can get a more standard metric (some lead tape brands will tell you how much 1" weighs for example).  

Not saying any of this will have any practical significance that we mere mortals could tell, but its a fun experiment to chase down.  Bryson missed putts all week long, so even he, with perfectly balanced golf balls still misses them.  I'm just more curious to see how off balance a ball is and what is that tipping point to see when it actually makes a visible difference in how it plays. 

Hmmmmm, interesting indeed...

 

Yes sir!  Us science types seem to love golf.

There is something about this game that fuels our internal continuous improvement engine. Constantly wanting to improve even if we never aim to play on tour or even the pro-am circuit. Just to know that I did this. Lol

Also regarding the CGP, turn out the shaft on my device is a bit off center in the device, though not necessarily crooked or anything. In addition, the cup was not inserted all the way hence causing the excess vibration and wobbling at high speed. I reached out to their customer service and they will be sending a new cup to try. Seems like as long as the cup is fully seated, there aren't any issues with balancing and the heavy point of the ball seems to come out to end consistently. Now I just need to figure out how to get the mark directly on the equator of the ball using the Milawaukee Inkzall as opposed to the included marker.

[DriverBreaker]

3 hours ago, golfish! said:

There is something about this game that fuels our internal continuous improvement engine. Constantly wanting to improve even if we never aim to play on tour or even the pro-am circuit. Just to know that I did this. Lol

Also regarding the CGP, turn out the shaft on my device is a bit off center in the device, though not necessarily crooked or anything. In addition, the cup was not inserted all the way hence causing the excess vibration and wobbling at high speed. I reached out to their customer service and they will be sending a new cup to try. Seems like as long as the cup is fully seated, there aren't any issues with balancing and the heavy point of the ball seems to come out to end consistently. Now I just need to figure out how to get the mark directly on the equator of the ball using the Milawaukee Inkzall as opposed to the included marker.

Ahhh yes, a main challenge in science is “is the measuring of the measuring devices accurate to begin with?”  Take exercise science as an example.  In peer-reviewed publications, scientists make note of which body fat scanning machine was used (and cite the margin of error that had been validated by other methods), or what heart rate monitor or VO2 Max equipment, and on and on.  This is because the validity and accuracy of the study depends upon the accuracy of the measuring devices to begin with.  Again raising my question as to the actual tangible impact this even has for us (golf ball balance).

[DriverBreaker]

Some may find this study interesting:

Imbalance of golf ball affect on putting article

The authors state that the ball that has the center off by just 0.2% of its radius would miss the hole at 5.8 meters, but that other things have a larger impact than the off-centeredness of the balance of the ball (e.g., deflections of grass, dimples, etc.). 

[DriverBreaker]

5.8 meters is ~19ft.  Not many putts dropping from 19ft anyways.  The Maltby video I posted earlier also showed the ball just missing the cup at 24ft.  So there seems to be some consistency there. 

[downlowkey]

We’re back with another round of 5 dz practice class 2019 TM TP5X whites (well almost… Golf Discount accidentally sent me a single Tour Response ball in this second batch).

After having reviewed the video @GolfSpy_CS shared of BAD’s coach balancing Bridgestone balls, I have taken some measures to hopefully tighten my testing tolerances and provide some additional data.

My new scale is good to 10 mg (1/100 gram) and was calibrated prior to testing.

All balls met the USGA conforming 45.93 gram max weight standard. Lightest - 45.42, Heaviest - 45.83, Average 45.64.

Next I inspected for cover defects based on MGS Ball Lab standards - limited to tooling indentations, cuts and abrasions (significant rough spots). 29 balls showed at least one of the issues listed. The majority of the imperfections we’re located in close proximity to the cover seam.

Balls were then individually placed in a saltwater float bath to determine balance. Two balls were perfectly balanced and 57 were unbalanced to some degree.

I used Glue Dot adhesives in place of lead tape as a weight to determine a pass/fail core imbalance result on each ball. Five dots weigh 80 mg.

Of the 57 that exhibited some degree of imbalance, 8 passed the 80 mg counterweight balance test and 49 failed. 

The overlap of balls that both passed the counterweight test and were free from cover defects was 6 (including the 2 perfectly balanced balls).

Despite taking a few hours to knock out this round of testing, it was actually sort of fun. I’m planning to run this batch of balls through another round of float balance testing with a series of increasing counterweights to determine the degree of imbalance beyond pass/fail at 80 mg. I’m open to suggestions/requests if you guys see any glaring problems with my testing protocols. I’m also not opposed to cutting some of these open to see what’s going on inside.

Additionally, through correspondence with Golf Discount I’ve learned some supply chain specifics on this product. For instance, practice balls are shipped bulk in large boxes direct from TM and then bagged by the dozen at GD’s warehouse. Bulk shipping could potentially be a source of some abrasions but I think it’s unlikely.

More to come but that’s all for now.

[DriverBreaker]

55 minutes ago, downlowkey said:

We’re back with another round of 5 dz practice class 2019 TM TP5X whites (well almost… Golf Discount accidentally sent me a single Tour Response ball in this second batch).

After having reviewed the video @GolfSpy_CS shared of BAD’s coach balancing Bridgestone balls, I have taken some measures to hopefully tighten my testing tolerances and provide some additional data.

My new scale is good to 10 mg (1/100 gram) and was calibrated prior to testing.

All balls met the USGA conforming 45.93 gram max weight standard. Lightest - 45.42, Heaviest - 45.83, Average 45.64.

Next I inspected for cover defects based on MGS Ball Lab standards - limited to tooling indentations, cuts and abrasions (significant rough spots). 29 balls showed at least one of the issues listed. The majority of the imperfections we’re located in close proximity to the cover seam.

Balls were then individually placed in a saltwater float bath to determine balance. Two balls were perfectly balanced and 57 were unbalanced to some degree.

I used Glue Dot adhesives in place of lead tape as a weight to determine a pass/fail core imbalance result on each ball. Five dots weigh 80 mg.

Of the 57 that exhibited some degree of imbalance, 8 passed the 80 mg counterweight balance test and 49 failed. 

The overlap of balls that both passed the counterweight test and were free from cover defects was 6 (including the 2 perfectly balanced balls).

Despite taking a few hours to knock out this round of testing, it was actually sort of fun. I’m planning to run this batch of balls through another round of float balance testing with a series of increasing counterweights to determine the degree of imbalance beyond pass/fail at 80 mg. I’m open to suggestions/requests if you guys see any glaring problems with my testing protocols. I’m also not opposed to cutting some of these open to see what’s going on inside.

Additionally, through correspondence with Golf Discount I’ve learned some supply chain specifics on this product. For instance, practice balls are shipped bulk in large boxes direct from TM and then bagged by the dozen at GD’s warehouse. Bulk shipping could potentially be a source of some abrasions but I think it’s unlikely.

More to come but that’s all for now.

Bravo good sir!  Nicely done and I'm jealous I don't have a fancy scale like you do.  I played two courses over vacation with the 2019 TP5x practice balls.  I didn't notice any glaring ball issues that seemed out of whack with normal retail versions of golf balls.  

I'd love to see you do the 80mg test with ProV1s out of the box and see how they do as a reference point.

When you did the 80mg test, what were you looking for when the balls were placed back in the salt water?  Rotation to where the glue dot and marked light spot where horizontal in the water?

Also, I think it would be cool to see the most out of balance ball in weight and cut it open to see if you can tell the core is off center.

Finally, For a ball over 80mg out of balance, do some putt tests to see if it causes missed putts or on full swings if you get some funkiness.

Great effort again!

[downlowkey]

17 hours ago, GolfSpy_CS said:

I'd love to see you do the 80mg test with ProV1s out of the box and see how they do as a reference point.

When you did the 80mg test, what were you looking for when the balls were placed back in the salt water?  Rotation to where the glue dot and marked light spot where horizontal in the water?

Also, I think it would be cool to see the most out of balance ball in weight and cut it open to see if you can tell the core is off center.

Finally, For a ball over 80mg out of balance, do some putt tests to see if it causes missed putts or on full swings if you get some funkiness.

Retail ball balance testing on a number of products is definitely on my To Do List.

I expected the poles to flip if the balls were less 80mg out of balance and that was my observation on 8 balls. The counterweight on the rest didn’t waver at all from the North Pole orientation. And the counterweight also returned to the North Pole orientation after repositioning it at the equator and releasing it in the bath. I don’t especially like handling lead but ordered some tape for future testing to exclude any possibility of slight adhesive buoyancy. I’m planning to rerun this batch at 80mg when it’s delivered to see if the results match.

Cutting some of these open sounds fun and that’s my plan going forward with the increasing counterweight protocol to identify the worst farm eggs.

I signed up for the PuttOUT package reviewand if that mat rolls true it would probably be a decent surface to test roll variance. Beyond that I think gathering reliable flight characteristic data is a job best left to a robot and quality launch monitor.