Lowest Spin Tour Ball off the Driver

[pollock21]

I'm about to venture into the realm of a "higher" spinning driver for the higher MOI. My goal is to keep the spin down in the 2200-2500 range. I know there's lots of ways to decrease spin, but I know an easy one is a ball change. Balls can easily account for a few hundred RPM or more difference off of the driver. Looking for feedback/testing that anyone has done regarding tour quality balls to see which are the lowest spin models relative to each other. Looking at a package that just says "low spin" isn't really enough info, and I don't have the ability to get on trackman with all the different ball types and test for myself. Any feedback is appreciated.

[bluedot]

With all due respect, I don't think you are going to find what you are looking for; there just aren't big differences in driver spin among premium tour balls anymore. There's a "sweet spot" of launch conditions, including spin rate, to give maximum distance, and all the manufacturers are trying to hit that spot, so in the best independent testing available, the striking thing is how similar the numbers are off a driver. The spin differences show up when you get around the green.

The good news is that the spin rate you reference (2200-2500) is exactly where Tour balls fall if you're talking about a 100 mph driver club head speed. The balls are engineered to spin more as the swing speed is lower to keep the ball in the air longer, and to spin less at higher speeds to keep them from ballooning.

The best testing has been done by Today's Golfer and also by a rival website to this one, but the results are pretty much the same in both, I assure you. If you think that a hundred or so RPM's are worth it, then the two balls you might try are the Titleist AVX or the TM TP5-x, but I think there are other, better reasons to pick a particular golf ball.

[pollock21]

This is the key variable I’m concerned with at the moment. I know there can be as much as 400-500 RPM difference between tour balls. That’s significant to me and should be for anyone with a driver. I’m aware of testing completed elsewhere, but was looking for testing by others to confirm results. But as you can tell from the attached photo, there are major differences between the outliers. I agree, a lot fall in a similar range, but it’s certainly not all the same.

With what I’m trying to do with my driver, I am looking at all variables possible to get spin manageable. Guys will spend $300 on a new shaft to drop spin 150-200 RPM when that could be done with a ball.

[Celebros]

Where is your graph/data from? It is very purdy be lacks any useful information as posted.

[pollock21]

It's from another site that cannot be mentioned here for whatever reason, lol. It's from some ball testing from 2019. All of the information is there. I'm just looking for some real world WRX feedback to compare to these findings.

I only posted that chart to show that there is testing which shows that there are major differences in these tour balls off the driver.

[jons1]

Titleist left dash or avx maybe

[bluedot]

A couple of notes about that chart, which I've seen and studied.

Not all of the dots on there represent "tour" balls; the lowest spinning ball, for instance, is made by Master Grip and the second lowest is the Callaway ERC. Not all of the dots are labeled in that graph; it isn't easy (if possible!) to get a good comparison of the top premium balls.If you scroll down a bit farther on the page where that graph is, you come to a table with a mountain of data for each ball, and the spin rates off the driver for the top premium balls are just remarkably tightly clustered; basically less that 100 rpms separate them. If that's significant to you, that's great, but there just are NOT hundreds of rpms of difference available if you want to use a premium golf ball that is going to provide higher spin rates around the green.You mention shafts, and that's another pretty persistent misunderstanding as well; the idea of "high launch, low spin" just isn't the way the laws of physics work. Are there differences? Sure, but the significance of the differences just isn't there.

If you want to change the spin rate off the driver of the premium ball you hit, then the two best ways are lower loft, which involves some serious trade offs and might not be worth it anyway, and a change in your angle of attack IF it isn't already optimal. The ball itself just ain't going to do it, at least off the driver.

[arbeck]

Sure there is around 400 RPM's of difference from the highest spinning ball off the driver, to the lowest. But that's really because there were a few outliers. The Mizuno RB Tour X is a spin machine and at the time, the Bridgestone Tour B XS also was quite spinny (it has since been engineered for less). Remove those two balls and you're talking more like 150RPM's from top to bottom. Where the spin of the ball really makes a difference is in your irons. There's a 1200RPM difference between 7i spin on the tour balls.

[pollock21]

Let's keep a few things in perspective. My original post is simply asking about real world testing vs. tour level balls. I get it. You say they're all the same, I say they're not. There are many variables, but the ball test backs up that there are differences, there are outliers, but they are still different. Blanket statements like, they're all the same aren't accurate.

Also, and this is my entire point for asking the question, this was a robot test. I was looking for real world results. Yes, I agree, differences are far greater on irons and wedges. But, that is not what I'm after here.Not all of the dots on there represent "tour" balls; the lowest spinning ball, for instance, is made by Master Grip and the second lowest is the Callaway ERC. There are still many differences in spin rates from other tour balls. Pro V1X- 2254 Pro V1- 2240 AVX- 2193 TP5X - 2170 TP5 - 2194 ZStar XV - 2248 ZStar - 2307 You could argue these are some of the more popular tour balls. I'll omit Bridgestone since it's been mentioned the XS has changed. That leaves the lowest of this group as TP5X at 2170 and ZStar at 2307 which is a 137 RPM delta. Could be argued as insignificant, but this is the world of averages. You're making the argument that they are all the same, but when data proves this not to be the case, you can't just back out of that and call the other balls in this test as outliers so they don't count. It just backs up the point that they aren't all the same. Although we're getting into semantics here a bit because you're correct, the balls are fairly closely grouped, but keep in mind these are averages. So 150 RPM is a fairly big deal. If you could go from 2500 RPM driver average down to 2350 RPM with a ball change, I'll take it. That's significant to me.Not all of the dots are labeled in that graph; it isn't easy (if possible!) to get a good comparison of the top premium balls. You can filter the graph by ball.If you scroll down a bit farther on the page where that graph is, you come to a table with a mountain of data for each ball, and the spin rates off the driver for the top premium balls are just remarkably tightly clustered; basically less that 100 rpms separate them. If that's significant to you, that's great, but there just are NOT hundreds of rpms of difference available if you want to use a premium golf ball that is going to provide higher spin rates around the green.You mention shafts, and that's another pretty persistent misunderstanding as well; the idea of "high launch, low spin" just isn't the way the laws of physics work. Are there differences? Sure, but the significance of the differences just isn't there. We are agreeing here, that was the same point I was making, I just didn't cleary articulate it. I was trying to say that people chase spin in shafts when they could easily gain that spin with a ball change depending on which ball they were playing. Shafts really don't impact launch or spin as much as people think. TXG has done some tests on this and in some cases, the "high" launch shaft actually launches lower. They found that the shaft profile has more influence on strike location as opposed to high/low launch/spin impacts.

I understand your point, but robots aren't real world. They are a good way to provide a consistent means to perform a test like this, but every swing is different. I'm simply asking the question if anyone has done head to head ball testing in real life as opposed to this robot test, and found any gains to be made. TP5X is already my favorite ball, so that's likely gonna be what I'll gave based on this test. But, maybe someone has found another tour ball that spins less, I'm interested to hear about that.

[North Butte]

Head to head testing in real life (unless maybe you were Matt B. from TXG with a ton of time on your hands) is impossibly confounded by swing variation and variation in outdoor conditions. You'd have to be a good ball striker hitting two balls back to back on every shot for a hundred rounds to really know if an apparent difference exists rather than being patterns you perceived in randomness.

I know I'm way happier playing a Pro V1x than a Chrome Soft and I also can see that the Pro V1x consistently flies higher. But that's only from playing 100+ rounds with Chrome Soft and many hundreds with Pro V1x. Even then, I can only say a couple of broad trends are true. No way I can tell which one spins more or less off certain clubs. Not even after using them both for much longer than I have.

[The Pearl]

Although I have convinced myself that the AVX is better for me in terms of overall distance, I suspect you are correct, that much of my belief in this vs. the ProV1x is probably random and confirmation bias. Even hitting a few shots side by side over the course of a few rounds can leave an inaccurate impression. Our own feedback loop of how we struck a ball can be really flawed even for good players that play all the time.

[Gatorgolf04]

I find the ProV1x left dash to be one of the lowest spinning tour balls off the driver that still has the short game performance I'd expect out of a premium ball. TXG did a test recently that has some of that confirmation as well against PRO v1x.

[pollock21]

I’ll have to check that one out.

Thanks for the feedback!

[bluedot]

Umm, I don't think you can find the words "they're all the same" in anything that I wrote; that's a pretty intense misquote. I not only didn't write that, I don't believe that. AT ALL!

What I DID say is that the launch characteristics, including spin rates, of premium tour balls are remarkably similar off a driver. There are much larger differences around the green, but large differences off the tee just don't show up in testing. I think the physics of why this is true are pretty simple to understand; maximum distance is achieved by pretty much the same set of parameters no matter which company makes the ball.

I don't know what to do with the distinction you're trying to make between robot testing and what you refer to as "real world", so I'll leave that alone; I don't want to hijack your thread by turning it into a discussion of something that can't be measured or proven anyway. If you just want individual opinions about what people think they are seeing on the course with THEIR swing, I hope it's helpful to YOUR swing.

And I suppose some of this comes down to the question of what you consider to be a premium, tour golf ball. I wouldn't consider the MG ball to be that, nor the Callaway ERC; both are very low spin, however. And I guess there is also the question of how much spin is significant TO YOU. 150 rpms, which is sort of the range of difference in what I would consider to be the true "tour premium" golf balls is around 6% of difference at 100 mph; I wouldn't base my choice of ball on 6% off the driver, but someone else might, and I get that. To me, the spin rates around the green are a much bigger deal, but you might very well feel otherwise and want that 6%, regardless of what the ball is doing off a wedge.

[pollock21]

Literally from your first post.

”With all due respect, I don't think you are going to find what you are looking for; there just aren't big differences in driver spin among premium tour balls anymore.”

Here’s my entire point. If you’re testing drivers and they perform identical except one spins 2400 and the other spins 2250 average, which are you picking if you’re after low spin? We will disagree that 150 RPM average is significant.

Im trying to build a forgiving driver which are inherently higher spin and I want to consider all options to keep spin down. If a ball can lower my average 150 RPM or possibly more, that’s a very easy gain to achieve. I don’t have issues or need a ball to help with my spin around the greens, nor with my irons. As I’ll say yet again, I’m not concerned with those numbers at this point.

[North Butte]

It's easy enough (assuming the relative spin is the same for you as for whoever did the testing) to simply pick a ball off the chart with 150rpm less spin than the one you're using. But it's totally, completely, absolutely meaningless in terms of results. If your next 1,000 driver shots average 2,250rpm and the 1,000 shots with the previous ball averaged 2,400rpm you will not hit the ball farther, straighter, score lower or see any other discernible effect from that 150rpm less spin. It is too small a difference to matter.

[bward]

As others have said, chasing driver spin is the wrong way to look at a ball choice. I've tested balls extensively on my own launch monitor, and strike is about the only difference you will see in the data. Hit them all in the center and they basically do the same thing as far as end result is concerned. If you want to see some real differences start looking at mid irons into wedges.

[pollock21]

Robot testing has literally proven this false. I’ve also mentioned countless times that I am only concerned with driver spin at this point.

For anyone that thinks this is a waste, I’m gonna respectfully ask you to keep it to yourself to try and keep my thread on track.

If anyone has found a certain ball to be very low spin, please feel free to share your feedback.

[pollock21]

More real world testing contradicting that this “doesn’t matter”. TXG Test. Same swing, same golfer, same club, same day. These numbers are relevant.

[North Butte]

OK, fine.

[bward]

[ShakeyT]

For my swing speed, the Bridgestone Tour B RX has produced the lowest spin off the driver than other "tour" balls.

It does not have max stopping power on the green, but I'm not looking for that.

[pollock21]

 

I can pick up a Maverick and a Maverick SZ and guess which one will spin lower? Even with my swing that isn’t perfect every time, over the course of a set of balls, SZ is gonna spin less. Same applies to the golf ball.

Anyway, done feeding the trolls. Plenty of facts and data out there. Feedback from others that want to provide and personal input is very welcome.

I will ask one more time, if you don’t have anything to offer to my thread, please keep it to yourself.

[The Pearl]

For me, 90 mph club head speed, 5.2 index, the Titleist AVX is the only "tour ball" that launches noticeably lower and with less spin. But for many players, there will be negatives. It is too soft for some, doesn't spin enough around the greens for others, and for higher swing speeds distance could be sacrificed.

While the ball tests are excellent they should only be a starting point. You are going to have to "dig it out of the dirt" yourself. You are almost guaranteed to get different results than the test might suggest. The real question is not if Ball A is going to spin 150 rpm's less than Ball B, but rather are you going to consistently be able to produce 150 less rpm's so that it makes a difference?

As you would probably agree, everything is a trade-off.

[Guest]

Well didn't this get a bit heated... i'm initially a victim of what the box says, then a hundred other threads, but TP5x was my straightest / less punishing off the tee... Like others have said though i stopped using it given my choice is more on the feel from 150yard through putting.

Question... when hoping for a 150RPM spin reduction off the drive. Does that mean you're seeking a ball that will have 5-10 less rotations from contact to landing?

 

[pollock21]

TP5X has always been a great performing ball for me, so that one will be in the running.

[bluedot]

I think this is the first time I've ever been called a troll on this site, and truly, it was never my intention to treadjack or troll. And I understand now that you aren't interested in robot testing, but only want anecdotal stuff from individuals.

I think it's fair to say that MOST (all?) people in the business of helping golfers pick a golf ball advise two things: First, to start at the green, where the big differences in performance between various balls manifest, rather than at the tee, and second, to play the same ball all the time, so that the ball does what you think it is going to do on a properly struck shot.

I've always done both of those things, using independent testing to provide information, so I'm not going to be any help to you; I realize that now. And if I DID experiment with golf balls on my own, I'm not sure how I could accurately tell you or anybody else which one spins more or less off a driver, given the relatively minute size of the differences and the impossibility of any sort of accurate measurement by "eyeballing". I could perhaps tell you which ball seemed to be LONGER off the tee for me; I know to a certainty, for instance, that the Snell MTB-X is longer FOR ME than the 2019 version of the Chrome Soft was, but I can't tell you that's because of a lower spin rate. I KNOW the MTB-X spins more off a wedge than the CS, but I don't have any way of measuring that off a driver because I don't own a launch monitor. Thus my reliance on people that DO own launch monitors...

So I'll resign from the thread because I know you don't want to hear stuff about testing, and that's all I have to offer. Good luck in the quest!

[pollock21]

Let me back up and apologize. Things got heated which was not my intention. We both made sound arguments for our opinions on the matter. But you’re spot on. The robot test was my basis, but I was looking for individual testing on various models similar to what TXG did in the left dash vs Pro V1x test.

Then I could use all of that data to make a decision on balls that I want to try. I know that the proper way is green back. But I want to start with the lowest spin options of the driver, then work forward to the green and eliminate options from there.

I also know in my personal experience that some of the lower spin balls like the TP5X perform fantastic for me through the bag. The XV and MTB-X do as well. Knowing this, I was looking for this info to fine tune the driver end as I have an SZ Xtreme on the way and I know spin is gonna be higher than I’m accustomed to. So looking at all avenues to squeeze my spin numbers down as close to the low to mid 2000’s.

[Sons_of_Pitches]

Currently playing a 9* Ping LST (love this club). That said, the Pro V1x was the ticket for me. I have also been testing the Maxfli Tour X and it is right there with the Pro V1x (very underrated ball and cheap - 2 for $50 at Dicks/GG - the only downside for me is that they don't make it in yellow). I also tried the AVX but they just fell out of the sky on driver for me. A couple other balls I tried but seemed to spin to much were Srixon Z-Star & XV models and Chrome Soft X.

[Oldboy]

Funny TXG also found the Pro V1X to be one of the spinniest balls with driver i believe ..