How/how much have premium 3 pc balls improved over the last 10 years? In what ways?

Golfnutintib · September 17, 2019

I recently stumbled into several (many, like 60+) dozen brand new 2006-2008 vintage Titleist Pro V1/1x and Callaway Hex Tour/Tour 56 balls, new in box/cartons. Also a number of other top tier balls from that time - Nike One's, Srixons, Precept U Tri Tours, Ben Hogan Tour Deeps, WIlson Staffs. They were all stored properly, not subject to heat or humidity.

1. How far has golf ball innovation come in this ensuing period? Are these balls really uncompetitive with modern top tier balls from these same makes - like the current ProV1, Chrome Soft, TP5's etc etc? This from the view of a decent recreational golfer, 5-12 index player, for instance? Of course, the manufacturers' marketing machines would like us all to believe the new stuff is always better.

2. I assume these balls don't go bad just sitting... or do they?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

cristphoto · September 17, 2019

Over the last several years urethane balls have become much more durable without giving up softness or spin. Just 5 or 6 years ago I would often notice the groove "gills" on the ball after a full wedge. No more. My experience has also been that as balls get older (11 to 13 years in your example) they tend to feel much harder. Most companies state that as a ball gets older than about 5 years performance tends to start falling off.

trackcoach13 · September 17, 2019

> @Golfnutintib said:

> I recently stumbled into several (many, like 60+) dozen brand new 2006-2008 vintage Titleist Pro V1/1x and Callaway Hex Tour/Tour 56 balls, new in box/cartons. Also a number of other top tier balls from that time - Nike One's, Srixons, Precept U Tri Tours, Ben Hogan Tour Deeps, WIlson Staffs. They were all stored properly, not subject to heat or humidity.

>

> 1. How far has golf ball innovation come in this ensuing period? Are these balls really uncompetitive with modern top tier balls from these same makes - like the current ProV1, Chrome Soft, TP5's etc etc? This from the view of a decent recreational golfer, 5-12 index player, for instance? Of course, the manufacturers' marketing machines would like us all to believe the new stuff is always better.

>

> 2. I assume these balls don't go bad just sitting... or do they?

>

> Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Did you break into my garage???

arbeck · September 17, 2019

The biggest thing that has changed with these balls is spin separation. They have been able to lower driver spin while keeping iron spin and green side spin high by having multi density cores and different mantle layers. That and dimple patterns for better aerodynamics and wind performance are the biggest changes.

North Butte · September 17, 2019

Something about "Tour" balls changed a good while back but I don't have a good feel for exactly when. Circa 2002 or 2003 a weak hitter like myself was giving up distance by playing any of the available Tour balls. And the firmest ones like the first-generation Pro V1x just about fell out of the sky when I hit them with, say, a 6-iron or 7-iron. Maybe they lacked "spin separation" that friend *arbeck* mentions and there just wasn't enough spin on mid-iron shots to stay in the air given my low clubhead speed.

By 2013 when that generation of Pro V1/Pro V1x came out, those were truly Tour balls that anyone can use without giving up anything. But even before that, balls like the TP Red or a couple of the early Callaway (Tour iX, tour iZ) were usable for me. The TP Red worked a treat and those Callaway "Tour i" balls felt hard as rocks but were spin monsters and as long as any distance ball out there.

So it seems to me that somewhere around maybe 2008-ish the ball manufacturers finally cracked the code of making balls with the complete package of performance characteristics with no real compromises (other than maybe feel/sound). The process was definitely complete by 2013 when Titleist caught up to the trend. I remember lots of guys at my club commenting on how disappointing earlier ProV models had been but how great the 2013's were.

storm319 · September 17, 2019

> @"North Butte" said:

> Something about "Tour" balls changed a good while back but I don't have a good feel for exactly when. Circa 2002 or 2003 a weak hitter like myself was giving up distance by playing any of the available Tour balls. And the firmest ones like the first-generation Pro V1x just about fell out of the sky when I hit them with, say, a 6-iron or 7-iron. Maybe they lacked "spin separation" that friend *arbeck* mentions and there just wasn't enough spin on mid-iron shots to stay in the air given my low clubhead speed.

>

> By 2013 when that generation of Pro V1/Pro V1x came out, those were truly Tour balls that anyone can use without giving up anything. But even before that, balls like the TP Red or a couple of the early Callaway (Tour iX, tour iZ) were usable for me. The TP Red worked a treat and those Callaway "Tour i" balls felt hard as rocks but were spin monsters and as long as any distance ball out there.

>

> So it seems to me that somewhere around maybe 2008-ish the ball manufacturers finally cracked the code of making balls with the complete package of performance characteristics with no real compromises (other than maybe feel/sound). The process was definitely complete by 2013 when Titleist caught up to the trend. I remember lots of guys at my club commenting on how disappointing earlier ProV models had been but how great the 2013's were.

I think we all fail to remember how much better the initial ProV1 was than the rest of the competition during the early 2000's. I just cringe when I come across balls from that era as those early urethane covers were just so much harder with much flatter, higher count dimple patterns that resulted in lower peak flight that just seemed to fall out of the air (granted at the time still markedly better than what came before). Following the 2010 groove rollback, there seemed to be a renewed focus on spin separation (mainly to make up for the loss in green side spin) which brought softer covers which then required durability/resiliency improvements as a result. If you look at the last 5-8 years, durability really seems to be the most noticeable improvement with a lot of the big OEM balls (and to a lesser extent the number of choices available and cost).