2000 Prov1 vs 2020 Prov1

[Tsecor 723]

Saw this video of the 20 year test between Prov1 versions..... shocking results.....Marketing is everything.....thoughts?????

20 year test

 

[PMookie 17,019]

Pretty interesting. I found six 2009 Pro V1 in a box in my garage and played them about a month ago. I love them! Performance was great, distance, everything about them I liked! If I found a few dozen new I’d keep playing them. Most of the recent iterations focus on spin characteristics, or durability as was mentioned in the video, or slight modifications, so it’s not surprising Shiels didn’t see big differences.

[cnosil 24,388]

Not that surprising, bu I wish he would have tested the seam alignment as that was a big deal with the original.  Horizontal seam for spin and vertical for distance.  

[Shapotomous 4,819]

The seam position off the tee made a big difference in ball flight when they came out.  I remember Nicklaus saying he was shocked they were legal because of that characteristic.

[RickyBobby_PR 9,249]

Good old rick Shiels. The 2020 prov1 is actually 2019 version due to 2 year release cycles and they come in the odd years.

[Hook DeLoft 703]

On 6/25/2021 at 9:43 AM, RickyBobby_PR said:

Good old rick Shiels. The 2020 prov1 is actually 2019 version due to 2 year release cycles and they come in the odd years.

Bit of a nit pick.  He was testing the model current for the year 2020.

[Fool4vokey 4]

No real surprises, the specs the USGA uses haven't really changed. Some of the testing methods have, but not that would alter the performance. Even the cover durability was advertised for years by Titleist as improved. 

[jlukes 16,196]

2021 changed the dimple pattern which altered aerodynamics. That can’t be tested on a gc quad

[RickyBobby_PR 9,249]

7 hours ago, Hook DeLoft said:

Bit of a nit pick.  He was testing the model current for the year 2020.

Yes but it helps that accurate information is given so those that may be searching looking know what’s what.

[Tsecor 723]

14 hours ago, jlukes said:

2021 changed the dimple pattern which altered aerodynamics. That can’t be tested on a gc quad

agree.....its amazing how many companies employ the same basic dimple pattern though. 

dimple pattern patent - Tetrahedral Dimple Design

[Tony Covey MGS 707]

15 hours ago, jlukes said:

2021 changed the dimple pattern which altered aerodynamics. That can’t be tested on a gc quad

Exactly this. This stuff drives me bonkers, so let me lay it out for everyone.

Anyone who is testing golf balls on a camera based launch monitor and doesn't provide any sort of disclaimer about the fact that downrange numbers are, at best, estimates, either doesn't understand the capabilities of their tools, or isn't vested in providing an accurate picture to their audience.

The more significant the difference in the dimple pattern, the less reliable the info is. 

For my money, the GC Quad is the best launch monitor on the planet. In our indoor test environment, nothing comes close (we can talk about radar's inability to accurately and repeatedly capture spin axis tilt in limited flight environments some other time), but it doesn't mean it's perfect. 

Like anything project around the house, it's important you understand your objective, and choose the right tools accordingly.

When it comes to testing golf balls, Quad remains outstanding for capturing the data that's generated within the first milliseconds of flight. Ball speed, launch angle, azimuth (starting direction/horizontal launch angle), spin rate, and axis tilt are the ones I would be looking at for a ball test. When the ball is the key variable, you need to be really aggressive in how you define outliers, and of course, being really aggressive in what you remove  means that with human testers, you need to hit a significant number of shots to give you enough data to work with.

Peak Height, Carry, Descent Angle, Roll, total distance, and yup...Offline too, WHEN THE BALL IS THE VARIABLE and you're only capturing the initial launch, extrapolating carry, descent, total, roll, etc. differences of two different models with two entirely different dimple patterns, is no more than a semi educated guess (and the less alike the dimple, the less educated it becomes. 

Ball Speed, Launch Angle(s), Spin, and Axis Tilt that's what you get when the balls are different. That's perfect for Most Wanted and our lab testing because the ball isn't the variable. It's fine...even preferable to normalize downrange performance. One of our objectives is to eliminate every variable that we can.

Anyway...

Back to the point at hand...the Quad captures what I suppose is like an initial flight plan. It tells you what the ball happened at launch and provides a normalized view of what *should* happen the rest of the way. What it doesn't do is tweak its algorithms based on specific dimple characteristics, and it sure is hell can't detect when there's a critical defect in that pattern.

There are two primary things to consider at this point, and both are related to the dimple pattern.

First, let's consider the worst case scenario.  Call it uneven dimpling. Whether that's from sloppy paint or where the factory inexplicably pieced together two different cover designs (it happens). In the real world, these problems would likely manifest in the offline number and would be visible over the full flight, but, and this is the important piece of it, there's be nothing in the launch data to provide any evidence of an issue. Since aero issues don't typically manifest at impact, the flight would look normal on a camera-based system.

Now let's simply consider general differences or ENHANCEMENTS in aero performance over a generation or two of balls. There are fundamentally good dimple designs, fundamentally bad ones, and others that are optimized for one ball design but get used on a tons of different designs (the popular foremost dimple is a good example here - works better on 3-piece balls than 4-piece).

Another great example was the original Kirkland 3-piece. In indoor tests its almost indistinguishable from a Pro V1. It spins a bit more, but otherwise...

Test it with a robot, outdoors, and man...the deficiencies of the dimple pattern are glaring. A hint of wind destroys hit. I use this example because it brings the point of this conversation home. Lift (initial launch performance) is similar. Drag (what happens once the ball is in the air) is worlds apart. This is what gets obscured when the wrong tool is chosen for a ball test.

Since the advent of the solid core ball, compression rules haven't much changed. A firmer ball is a faster ball. Any kid who hit both a baseball and a tennis ball with a bat fundamentally understands this...even if he hasn't thought about it in terms of golf ball performance. 

Likewise, the rules of spin haven't changed either. You want more spin, put a soft layer over a hard one. Want less spin, put a harder layer over a soft one. That's your simple explanation of why soft core balls (particularly 2-piece models) don't spin around the green.

That leaves the cover and more specifically the aerodynamics. It's the least understood aspect of ball design, but it's likely where there's been the greatest evolution over the last decade or two, drag coefficients, the Magnus (and reverse Magnus effect), that sort of stuff are likely where the greatest opportunities remain.

Ultimately, what we're talking about is stability of flight

So yeah...comparing a decades old ball against a new ball, I suppose, makes for a fun read, but when you're methodology is fundamentally incapable of capturing the most significant changes over those decades, you're basically just blowing smoke to get clicks.

I'd also add that golf balls have a shelf life and testing anything more than a few years is also dicey.

[Getoffmylawn 5,229]

10 minutes ago, Tony Covey MGS said:

Test it with a robot, outdoors, and man...the deficiencies of the dimple pattern are glaring. A hint of wind destroys hit. I use this example because it brings the point of this conversation home. Lift (initial launch performance) is similar. Drag (what happens once the ball is in the air) is worlds apart. This is what gets obscured when the wrong tool is chosen for a ball test.

 

Thank you for the very enlightening insight!

To your knowledge do most/all company's actually do the outdoor robot testing you describe as a matter of standard practice to evaluate and perfect the dimple pattern?  I can't imagine Titleist's 2021 change to the dimple pattern wasn't born of some sort of data that validated it as an improvement, but as was mentioned earlier in this thread the same basic dimple pattern seems to be remarkably prevalent throughout the industry.  Another level of separation between Titleist and others...?

[jlukes 16,196]

52 minutes ago, Tony Covey MGS said:

Exactly this. This stuff drives me bonkers, so let me lay it out for everyone.

Anyone who is testing golf balls on a camera based launch monitor and doesn't provide any sort of disclaimer about the fact that downrange numbers are, at best, estimates, either doesn't understand the capabilities of their tools, or isn't vested in providing an accurate picture to their audience.

The more significant the difference in the dimple pattern, the less reliable the info is. 

For my money, the GC Quad is the best launch monitor on the planet. In our indoor test environment, nothing comes close (we can talk about radar's inability to accurately and repeatedly capture spin axis tilt in limited flight environments some other time), but it doesn't mean it's perfect. 

Like anything project around the house, it's important you understand your objective, and choose the right tools accordingly.

When it comes to testing golf balls, Quad remains outstanding for capturing the data that's generated within the first milliseconds of flight. Ball speed, launch angle, azimuth (starting direction/horizontal launch angle), spin rate, and axis tilt are the ones I would be looking at for a ball test. When the ball is the key variable, you need to be really aggressive in how you define outliers, and of course, being really aggressive in what you remove  means that with human testers, you need to hit a significant number of shots to give you enough data to work with.

Peak Height, Carry, Descent Angle, Roll, total distance, and yup...Offline too, WHEN THE BALL IS THE VARIABLE and you're only capturing the initial launch, extrapolating carry, descent, total, roll, etc. differences of two different models with two entirely different dimple patterns, is no more than a semi educated guess (and the less alike the dimple, the less educated it becomes. 

Ball Speed, Launch Angle(s), Spin, and Axis Tilt that's what you get when the balls are different. That's perfect for Most Wanted and our lab testing because the ball isn't the variable. It's fine...even preferable to normalize downrange performance. One of our objectives is to eliminate every variable that we can.

Anyway...

Back to the point at hand...the Quad captures what I suppose is like an initial flight plan. It tells you what the ball happened at launch and provides a normalized view of what *should* happen the rest of the way. What it doesn't do is tweak its algorithms based on specific dimple characteristics, and it sure is hell can't detect when there's a critical defect in that pattern.

There are two primary things to consider at this point, and both are related to the dimple pattern.

First, let's consider the worst case scenario.  Call it uneven dimpling. Whether that's from sloppy paint or where the factory inexplicably pieced together two different cover designs (it happens). In the real world, these problems would likely manifest in the offline number and would be visible over the full flight, but, and this is the important piece of it, there's be nothing in the launch data to provide any evidence of an issue. Since aero issues don't typically manifest at impact, the flight would look normal on a camera-based system.

Now let's simply consider general differences or ENHANCEMENTS in aero performance over a generation or two of balls. There are fundamentally good dimple designs, fundamentally bad ones, and others that are optimized for one ball design but get used on a tons of different designs (the popular foremost dimple is a good example here - works better on 3-piece balls than 4-piece).

Another great example was the original Kirkland 3-piece. In indoor tests its almost indistinguishable from a Pro V1. It spins a bit more, but otherwise...

Test it with a robot, outdoors, and man...the deficiencies of the dimple pattern are glaring. A hint of wind destroys hit. I use this example because it brings the point of this conversation home. Lift (initial launch performance) is similar. Drag (what happens once the ball is in the air) is worlds apart. This is what gets obscured when the wrong tool is chosen for a ball test.

Since the advent of the solid core ball, compression rules haven't much changed. A firmer ball is a faster ball. Any kid who hit both a baseball and a tennis ball with a bat fundamentally understands this...even if he hasn't thought about it in terms of golf ball performance. 

Likewise, the rules of spin haven't changed either. You want more spin, put a soft layer over a hard one. Want less spin, put a harder layer over a soft one. That's your simple explanation of why soft core balls (particularly 2-piece models) don't spin around the green.

That leaves the cover and more specifically the aerodynamics. It's the least understood aspect of ball design, but it's likely where there's been the greatest evolution over the last decade or two, drag coefficients, the Magnus (and reverse Magnus effect), that sort of stuff are likely where the greatest opportunities remain.

Ultimately, what we're talking about is stability of flight

So yeah...comparing a decades old ball against a new ball, I suppose, makes for a fun read, but when you're methodology is fundamentally incapable of capturing the most significant changes over those decades, you're basically just blowing smoke to get clicks.

I'd also add that golf balls have a shelf life and testing anything more than a few years is also dicey.

Might make this my signature 

[BMart519 1,382]

35 minutes ago, Getoffmylawn said:

Thank you for the very enlightening insight!

To your knowledge do most/all company's actually do the outdoor robot testing you describe as a matter of standard practice to evaluate and perfect the dimple pattern?  I can't imagine Titleist's 2021 change to the dimple pattern wasn't born of some sort of data that validated it as an improvement, but as was mentioned earlier in this thread the same basic dimple pattern seems to be remarkably prevalent throughout the industry.  Another level of separation between Titleist and others...?

I can't speak to robot testing specifically, but a group of tour players on a driving range is pretty close to a ball striking robot. They are consistent enough to make observations about whether one ball flys higher or lower than another. Verifying the carry and roll distance is easy enough as well to judge whether there is noticeable effect on a prototype ball. 

[ejgaudette 3,743]

9 minutes ago, jlukes said:

Might make this my signature 

And I thought linking to the Callaway test made my signature a bit large.

[StrokerAce 11,769]

a lot of words about a golf ball.

there's got to be a point where the ball - for the most part - is the least important part of a golfers bag.
with the average handicap a 14 and a wide majority of golfers 14 or higher it all seems a bit of overkill.
Of course that's not to say there's not also a point where it becomes important to pay attention to the little things, with the ball being on of them. But there IS a tipping point.

I mean - play what you want to play - but if you lose balls on a consistent basis and are spending 47.00 on pro V1's because some outlet says they are "the best" you might as well put your money in a pile and set it on fire or open your window as you drive down the road and throw it out.

[Getoffmylawn 5,229]

7 minutes ago, StrokerAce said:

a lot of words about a golf ball.

there's got to be a point where the ball - for the most part - is the least important part of a golfers bag.
with the average handicap a 14 and a wide majority of golfers 14 or higher it all seems a bit of overkill.
Of course that's not to say there's not also a point where it becomes important to pay attention to the little things, with the ball being on of them. But there IS a tipping point.

I mean - play what you want to play - but if you lose balls on a consistent basis and are spending 47.00 on pro V1's because some outlet says they are "the best" you might as well put your money in a pile and set it on fire or open your window as you drive down the road and throw it out.

I tend to agree a little bit, but I would also say the quality control aspect of this conversation should still be a factor for that 14 or above handicapper...if a golfer's going to lose a ball it should be because he/she put a bad swing on it, not because the core was off-centered or the ball so poorly made it had a snowball's chance in hell of flying straight to begin with.

[THEZIPR23 6,382]

Anybody know how to get Tony fired up on a Monday morning...

[StrokerAce 11,769]

22 minutes ago, Getoffmylawn said:

I tend to agree a little bit, but I would also say the quality control aspect of this conversation should still be a factor for that 14 or above handicapper...if a golfer's going to lose a ball it should be because he/she put a bad swing on it, not because the core was off-centered or the ball so poorly made it had a snowball's chance in hell of flying straight to begin with.

I have a friend who has dogs and they let him walk a private course. He's given more probably 15-20 dozen nearly new Pro V1 and Pro V1x balls.
I really hope high handicappers keep buying them and losing them because that is a lot fewer balls that I need to buy.

That's not to say a lower hc player doesn't lose balls but the quantity that he finds and the condition they are in tend to lean in the direction of a higher hc player.

[cnosil 24,388]

34 minutes ago, StrokerAce said:

a lot of words about a golf ball.

 

I get what you are saying,  but regardless of how good or bad a golfer is,  some people like to learn and understand the details of clubs, balls, and other equipment.  Others are happy just hitting whatever.  MGS is basically about trying to dig into those details and identifying differences and people agree and disagree with the findings.  I personally enjoyed the educational aspect of what Tony posted; will it sway me in any direction or improve my handicap? Simple answer is no.