MyGolfSpy 2023 Golf Ball Test!!!

[JohnnyO3478]

30 minutes ago, tdc1 said:

None of the above!  

Maybe it is because I didn’t start playing until I was 40 y/o (1990) — no junior golf, no family golf club membership growing up, no other players in the family — that I saw a white golf ball as just another choice along with yellow and orange.  Today will I play white, yellow, orange, pink, Tour Response stripe, TP5 pix, Callaway Truvis and triple track.  About the only ones I don’t play are red, blue, and Vice drip — just can’t find them after bad hits.  Yellow remains my preference, however.

If not for Wayne Levi and Jerry Pate, would white still be our only option?

Careful. If you play the wrong color ball, you may never be a scratch player ...

[Tom the Golf Nut]

Played in a fog this morning (actual fog, not a hangover fog). The yellow Maxfli really helped. 

[JohnnyO3478]

2 minutes ago, Dooby said:

Might be a dumb question but does your sim require those dots or what’s the purpose behind dotting it for your sim?

I have a Rapsodo MLM2PRO. If you want to have spin axis numbers on your shots, you need the dots.

[cnosil]

6 minutes ago, Dooby said:

Might be a dumb question but does your sim require those dots or what’s the purpose behind dotting it for your sim?

Rapsodo Launch Monitor leverages those dots to better capture data. 

https://rapsodo.com/products/mlm2pro-golf-simulator

https://rapsodo.com/products/callaway-rpt-chrome-soft-x-golf-balls

[chisag]

7 minutes ago, JohnnyO3478 said:

Careful. If you play the wrong color ball, you may never be a scratch player ...

 

... Don't tell Goosen, Couples or Els. 

[Javs]

4 hours ago, GregGarner said:

Truth be told, they're really more of a chartreuse than a yellow. When I think of a yellow ball, my mental model is the dull yellow range ball. These are not those. These can be seen from orbit. Which is good, because that's where I tend to send them when they're a little high on the driver face...

Sounds like they are better for trout fishing than use as a golf ball, ha ha

[PhilM75072]

Despite my slow swing speed, I've had great success in the past with the Vice Pro Plus. Since I like a little softer feel off the driver, operative word here "softer", and the data shows that the Vice Pro and Pro Plus are almost identical (one being longer off the driver, the other off the mid-iron but combined about the same), I'm putting the Vice Pro in play this morning.

It is significantly cooler than it has been, so I'm not sure if it will be a fair comparison to recent rounds with other balls. I do wish they had tested the Callaway ERC Soft, as that has been one of my favorites since they introduced it in 2019.

[GregGarner]

28 minutes ago, PhilM75072 said:

It is significantly cooler than it has been

Well it wouldn't take much...

[JohnnyO3478]

Starting to think this ball deserves its own thread. Not this make/model. This particular ball. 

I played it for another 11 holes tonight, hit another tree and another cart path, thought I lost it twice. It still looks like almost new. 

I went through dozens of the old model yellow Tours - and they seemed to lose paint if you looked at them sideways ....

It supposed to rain tomorrow, so I'll be in the garage, bashing the new model. Will see how it holds up in there.

[mbrodeur86]

Well my ball experiment with the Chrome Soft X LS is officially over. Yesterday I decided to play the X LS vs the Pro V1 and see which one would be the better ball. It wasn't even close:

Chrome Soft X LS - 4 fairways/ 9 GIRs - total 83

Pro V1 - 6 fairways/ 11 GIRs - Total 74

I wanted to play a ball that was less expensive and had a little bit less spin but what I found was when I missed with my driver the X LS was...less forgiving? Basically if I missed with the X LS it would put me in a bad spot which ended up costing me strokes while the Pro V1 stayed in play more and was definitely more consistent. Only reason I want to switch is to save some money. The search continues...

[JohnnyO3478]

On 9/11/2023 at 8:45 PM, JohnnyO3478 said:

Starting to think this ball deserves its own thread. Not this make/model. This particular ball. 

I played it for another 11 holes tonight, hit another tree and another cart path, thought I lost it twice. It still looks like almost new. 

I went through dozens of the old model yellow Tours - and they seemed to lose paint if you looked at them sideways ....

It supposed to rain tomorrow, so I'll be in the garage, bashing the new model. Will see how it holds up in there.

I got 58+ holes out of it before I lost it in the water on 16 this afternoon. Despite the abuse I subjected it to - it looked great and usable right up to the point when it dribbled into the hazzard ....

 

I beat the crap outta that ball ....

 

... I think the rain affected my judgment today ....

[GregGarner]

On 9/16/2023 at 1:47 PM, mbrodeur86 said:

Well my ball experiment with the Chrome Soft X LS is officially over. Yesterday I decided to play the X LS vs the Pro V1 and see which one would be the better ball. It wasn't even close:

Chrome Soft X LS - 4 fairways/ 9 GIRs - total 83

Pro V1 - 6 fairways/ 11 GIRs - Total 74

I wanted to play a ball that was less expensive and had a little bit less spin but what I found was when I missed with my driver the X LS was...less forgiving? Basically if I missed with the X LS it would put me in a bad spot which ended up costing me strokes while the Pro V1 stayed in play more and was definitely more consistent. Only reason I want to switch is to save some money. The search continues...

My experience with the XLS is that it's not less spin than the ProV1. It's less spin than the Chrome Soft X, but other than that, it's a reasonably high-spin ball. Like you, I find myself gravitating away from the XLS at this point in the season because even though I tend to like working the ball, it is moving a lot even on shots that are really supposed to be fairly straight. It doesn't take much for a tight draw to turn into a sweeping hook!

If you like the performance of the ProV1 and just want to save some money, I'd look at the Maxfli Tour CG, Vice Pro, and OnCore Vero X1. There are plenty of DTC balls out there that are pretty similar to ol' reliable from a performance perspective, but yeah, the XLS is definitely not interchangeable with the ProV1.

[mbrodeur86]

On 9/18/2023 at 8:07 AM, GregGarner said:

My experience with the XLS is that it's not less spin than the ProV1. It's less spin than the Chrome Soft X, but other than that, it's a reasonably high-spin ball. Like you, I find myself gravitating away from the XLS at this point in the season because even though I tend to like working the ball, it is moving a lot even on shots that are really supposed to be fairly straight. It doesn't take much for a tight draw to turn into a sweeping hook!

If you like the performance of the ProV1 and just want to save some money, I'd look at the Maxfli Tour CG, Vice Pro, and OnCore Vero X1. There are plenty of DTC balls out there that are pretty similar to ol' reliable from a performance perspective, but yeah, the XLS is definitely not interchangeable with the ProV1.

I went by what the golf ball test gave us. It was about 200 rpms less spin. I found that for me at least it did spin less. I'm still going to test the ball against the Pro V1 as I want a cheaper alternative. I bought a dozen yellow Pro v1 and I love the color. Putting with the Pro V1 vs the triple track I loved the triple track more. I may go after the yellow X LS and just stick with it. We'll see...

[skraeling]

Had both my dad and neighbor take a whack off the tee with the X LS callaway ball. Both really liked how it felt and launched off the tee. They both had pretty ok distance too.

they both already play callaways (super soft and chrome soft) respectivly.

 

[HikingMike]

Hey all. I just dug into the 2023 ball test data again. I had looked at it again as I just posted my review of the Wilson Triad, and then it kind of went from there with scatter plots for ball speed and spin comparisons for driver/iron. But I had always wanted to check out the data closer. So I found a good way to gather all the data in Excel (similar to what others have posted here earlier). The main reason was so I could analyze things that weren't possible to do with the Tableau plots available. 

It looks like it was September so it will still be a while before we have a new big ball test from MGS. There are definitely some new balls/versions out there though so keep that in mind (AVX, Staff Model, Chrome Tour, Chrome Soft...?).

Below are a couple scatter plots I found interesting - Driver Spin vs. Iron Spin and Driver Ball Speed vs. Iron Ball Speed (both for fast club speed). I'll take requests for other scatter plots! Which two data points would you like to see compared? Be sure to give me club speed and club as well. And I can exclude some brands/models if you want since it's kind of busy.