New Snell Prime Golf Balls

[Craw]

I'm a pretty loyal Titleist (Prov1) player.  The past two weeks have been playing the new snell (both the Prime2 and 3), and for the money I don't think you can beat this ball.  I'd love to see a test that evaluates these balls for quality consistiency,  Even the 2 piece ball has a urethane cover that delivers some "grab" around and on the green.  Anyone else tried these?

[JFish350]

Yes I have & I do like them. That said, its hard to say as I have been dealing with an injury and my swing isn't the same. I don't get a consistent strike. My normal flight is right to left. With the injury everything is Left to right, I can't get a ball to go left unless I pull the crap out of it. 

My season is over, this has me thinking about doing a golf ball test to see which ball will be best for me once I am back.

 

I was a Srixon XV golf ball player, never really played Titleist as I always struggle with them. I've tried Bridgestone, vice, Snell, Taylor Made which I like as well. Srixon seemed to be the best. 

[Shapotomous]

I've played the Snell balls for a couple years now after switching from Titleist.  I have played the Black and MTB-X versions and they each play about the same for me.  I get the same performance from the Snells in terms of distance and bite on the greens as I got with Titleist.  I had some issues with durability with the last batch of 5 dozen I bought over the winter.... But not enough of an issue to make me switch away from them just yet.

[pozzit]

I have really enjoyed the new Prime balls. I have played Snells in the past, MTB Black then X I wanted to the new Prime and they do not disappoint. I got a test pack and wanted to compare them all. Was really impressed with all but the 3.0 was my favorite.

Full review and comparison on my personal blog

[kygolfdad]

I've been playing the 3.0's a ton.  I've been a huge fan,  initially started playing after ballnamic recommended a previous version as my #1 overall.  I think durability is great. I finished a round with 1 ball the last couple of days and minimal signs of wear. Less then when I use a new pro v1x. If same price as pro v1s, I'd realistically play the v1's, but for the price I'll take these all day. Just ordered my second batch actually. I think these are about tied with the chrome tours, but ahead of just about everything else I've played. 

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW]

I play the 4.0 but Ball lab for the 3.0 was a train wreck. 
 

https://mygolfspy.com/labs/ball-lab-2024-snell-prime-3-0/#comment-817216
 

[ClevelandGirl]

That new ball test is really worrying - my delivery of 5 dozen 3.0 balls arrived yesterday. 
 

I’ve been buying Snell balls since I started golfing. Feels weird to read that review. 

[03trdblack]

21 minutes ago, ClevelandGirl said:

That new ball test is really worrying - my delivery of 5 dozen 3.0 balls arrived yesterday. 
 

I’ve been buying Snell balls since I started golfing. Feels weird to read that review. 

Time to send them back!

[pozzit]

It really surprises me how poor they scored. I wasn't measure diameter or anything but crazy how they faired.

[GolfSpy_APH]

Pretty sure they may be coming to member testing as part of a HQ thing as well. TBD tho.

[bens197]

I couldn’t believe my eyes while reading the article. Dean has an incredible reputation in the industry and this was a bullet to the head. 

Truth digest doesn’t have feelings. Everyone is fair game. 

[Mike10487]

Sad to see, with the factory fire and all. Hopefully they can reverse the damage.

[JFish350]

WOW, what a kick to the nards for Dean. I still plan on buying a test pack. Question, did the MTB line and Prime line go away after the plant burned? 

Snell also had the "GETSOME" lime and I liked those as well, just not as much as the MTB or Prime ball. 

[JFish350]

Just got an email from Dean Snell where he does a video response the 3.0 lab test. Hopefully that link works. He's not to happy and shouldn't be. 

He says they addressed these issues a month ago. I for one hope they did. 

I am still going to buy a test pack and hope I find one that works for me. 

https://www.snellgolf.com/blogs/news/dean-addresses-3-0-data-report?_kx=vHDJVV36umRORXQu6EkRzCEC34YrgZgB8TgX0Gb2zD8.Nh73aN

[hartrick11]

I played Snell for a while, first with red (hated it) /black (liked it but a bit too soft), and then MTB X (liked this and stuck with it for a couple of years). MTB Prime X is where things started to go south for me. I didn't love the feel and didn't feel like I was getting the same performance vs. TP5x (this is subjective but it felt like the Snell was too spinny and going offline more often), and even moreso felt like the durability was not up to snuff (very noticeably worse than anything else I had tried), so I abandoned my Snell kick at least temporarily.

I haven't tried the new models yet, but hope they get sorted out soon as I'd like to see Snell succeed. 

[BradM]

5 minutes ago, JFish350 said:

Just got an email from Dean Snell where he does a video response the 3.0 lab test. Hopefully that link works. He's not to happy and shouldn't be. 

He says they addressed these issues a month ago. I for one hope they did. 

I am still going to buy a test pack and hope I find one that works for me. 

https://www.snellgolf.com/blogs/news/dean-addresses-3-0-data-report?_kx=vHDJVV36umRORXQu6EkRzCEC34YrgZgB8TgX0Gb2zD8.Nh73aN

Same, not surprised he is giving his thoughts on the results.

[jared52]

Saw that email as well and came here to see if there was any discussion. I am about to watch the video now, but first wanted to look at the article. 13/100 is insanely low. 

[GolfSpy_APH]

I didn't have any part of the testing that was done, but am curious why if they knew there were issues why they didn't ensure that the proper balls were there for testing. 

[jared52]

Still going through the video, but one of the points he's arguing is that a ball over the weight limit is not a bad ball. Well, it's not a conforming golf ball so I don't know how you can say it's not bad.

[Shapotomous]

1 hour ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

I didn't have any part of the testing that was done, but am curious why if they knew there were issues why they didn't ensure that the proper balls were there for testing. 

I believe MGS buys the balls at various times so the bad balls would have been in the Snell warehouse until that stock was used up.  If they bought some 2 months ago vs last week the issues could be vastly different.  

I think Snell got caught between finding a new mfg plant and getting them up to the quality standards they want.  Maybe as Dean says they tightened up the specs and QA at the new plant addressing the issues MGS found.  Then again maybe thats all he is going to get quality wise out of a mfg plant in China.

[Craw]

I listened to the video in which I think Dean did a nice job of explaining specs (particularly the weight of a ball), and how they (Snell) were manufactured at the high end of conforming weight.  He stated that when that weight was being exceeded they tightened the spec range and started producing at less then than max weight allowed.  I find this all very informative and a good thing as none of us want to or shouldn't want to be playing non-conforming balls.  Isn't it possible that the issue here is one of quality control?  That is, the Snell factory doesn't have the inspection level that Titleist or Taylormade do, so more of Snell balls will get tagged as "bad/non-conforming", while the big guys because of their inspection capabilities are making sure those that don't conform are caught and never exposed to an independent test and subsequent bad publicity.

[CrazyGolfNut]

I watched the video and appreciate his explination.  May go ahead and buy a dozen to see how they perform on the course.

Edited August 6 by CrazyGolfNut

[storm319]

3 hours ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

I didn't have any part of the testing that was done, but am curious why if they knew there were issues why they didn't ensure that the proper balls were there for testing. 

Ball Lab procurement process:

”We purchase three dozen of each ball model we test at retail. When possible, we source balls from different vendors and at different times. By sampling across multiple batches, we can obtain a more comprehensive picture of quality and consistency.”

https://mygolfspy.com/about-mygolfspy-ball-lab/

[Mike10487]

14 hours ago, JFish350 said:

Just got an email from Dean Snell where he does a video response the 3.0 lab test. Hopefully that link works. He's not to happy and shouldn't be. 

He says they addressed these issues a month ago. I for one hope they did. 

I am still going to buy a test pack and hope I find one that works for me. 

https://www.snellgolf.com/blogs/news/dean-addresses-3-0-data-report?_kx=vHDJVV36umRORXQu6EkRzCEC34YrgZgB8TgX0Gb2zD8.Nh73aN

They addressed the issue months ago, but they were still sold to the consumer. Hmmm... If it had been Titleist or most other manufacturers, they would have never left the plant floor. Or at the very least, never been shipped. 

[Mike10487]

So, Dean is mad at the weight portion of the article. He never addressed the out of round issues that would actually cause a ton of crap to go wrong. After watching this video, I have lost a lot of respect for Dean Snell. He really didn't address the entire ball test, just what he could argue. Never really apologized to the consumer for selling a bad ball. Just blamed it on his employees and MGS testers instead of taking responsibility. The overweight balls are "better" for you. Wow... just wow. Disappointed.

Edited August 6 by Mike10487

[BobBC78]

16 hours ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

I didn't have any part of the testing that was done, but am curious why if they knew there were issues why they didn't ensure that the proper balls were there for testing. 

I have also viewed Dean's video and am curious to know when the balls were purchased and when the tests were done (if the review says, I missed it)? It is entirely possible that Dean was discovering QC issues at around the same time the balls were purchased.  

 

[BobBC78]

Snell balls have been in my rotation for several years now and shortly after the Prime series was launched in April (at least that's when I got the e-mail) I ordered both the 2.0 and 3.0 models as my 7-iron distance was at the low end of 3.0 and high end of 2.0. I have played a couple of rounds with the 3.0 and one with the 2.0 and like both. Accordingly, I was pretty taken aback when I saw the review late last week characterizing the Snell 3.0 as the worst ball ever tested. Like others, I wasn't at all surprised that Dean responded. 

[GolfSpy_APH]

7 minutes ago, BobBC78 said:

I have also viewed Dean's video and am curious to know when the balls were purchased and when the tests were done (if the review says, I missed it)? It is entirely possible that Dean was discovering QC issues at around the same time the balls were purchased.  

 

The testing of them were done in the last few weeks I believe. 

So this begs the next questions - If there are some boxes that now have the fixed or resolved golf balls in them and boxes that still have issues, what box are you getting when you purchase? 

I am not saying these are going to be bad balls to play, haven't played them before so I can't talk to the performance. What I am thinking though is that this casts a lot of doubt in my mind if I was to be playing them. Is it the actual ball? Is it another mistake and is a two piece, am I getting the better ones or do I have an old batch? 

To me that is the scary part of all this. 

[BobBC78]

1 minute ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

I am not saying these are going to be bad balls to play, haven't played them before so I can't talk to the performance. What I am thinking though is that this casts a lot of doubt in my mind if I was to be playing them. Is it the actual ball? Is it another mistake and is a two piece, am I getting the better ones or do I have an old batch? 

To me that is the scary part of all this. 

Don't disagree. Seeing the report on Friday, I pulled the Snells from my bag and played Vice Pro's for my league play instead. 

Referring to @Mike10487's post above, Dean notes in the e-mail I got that there will be more information to follow addressing issues in the MGS review, so perhaps some of the core "out of round" issues will be addressed at that point. 

[JFish350]

Dean put out some pretty good info on what it takes to build a golf ball. More than I ever thought about. Out of round is a known issue on every single ball, why do you think Bryson finds the highpoint and marks it. I am thinking it isn't only for putting, but the tee shot as well. I don't think Bryson is playing a Snell ball, although I think that would be awesome. 

Dean did mention the out of round or maybe it was the piece between the core and the cover is really hard to make exactly even on every single ball. I would need to go back and look at other tests to see how far off the Snell ball is. 

 

Quality control is an issue with every single item ever made. When you have a part working without issue and then it breaks, now you have to go back and recalibrate that part, machine and product it makes not to mention if you have a new hire who isn't as skilled as the previous operator. Now do that with an entire factory. I am not an apologist for Snell, I can see where issues happened unfortunately for Snell and willing to give the benefit of the doubt. I will as I am sure most of those who play the Snell ball will be paying extremely close attention to the next test of this ball. the price point is to good to abandon this line. 

As I said before I am still buying a test pack and doing my homework