Ballnamic by PIng

[arbeck]

So Ping has just launched a ball fitting tool. Seems like they have similar data to the other large ball test, but probably more of it. The kicker though is that it can take your delivery numbers (trackman if you have them, distances and swing speed if you don't) and recommend a ball for you. It's not free, but it costs less than a dozen balls from most manufacturers, so it's probably money well spent.

 

I went ahead and did it, and it turns out I did a pretty good job of fitting myself from the other test numbers. It recommended me the Chromesoft X or the Srixon Z-Star XV. They were a 92.3% and 92.1% match to me. My current ball is the Snell MTB-X, which is "only" a 91.7% match. My ball seems to get knocked a little for it's driver performance into the wind, and it's fligher prevention (I guess they calculate this through spin consistency?). Based on the numbers I can't say it would be worth it to spend more on a Chromesoft X, but maybe if I was going to play in really windy conditions it would be.

[MattM97]

I was thinking of doing this but don't have any recent launch monitor numbers and assuming my launch windows as you can input as well may lead to an improper suggestion. I'm hoping they offer in person Ballnamic fittings because Ping HQ Canada is not far from me and I'm really looking to see what ball I should be playing cause I'm trying a lot and can't decide. 

[larryd3]

I just did it and really surprised by the results.  Srixon Z star XV (93.8%), TP5X (93.7%) and Bridgestone Tour BX (90.9%) were by far the best for me. My current prov1x didn't do so good in the comparisons at just 82.9%.   Guess I'm going to buy a couple sleeves of the Z star XV and Tour BX.  I've played the TP5x's before so have an idea on them.  Once again, really surprised.  Now the true test will be how they work on the course.  Figured the cost of doing the test was under 1 dozen balls, so why not give it a try and seems PING doesn't have a dog in the hunt since they aren't a ball manufacturer/seller.    Another thing that surprises me is that on Bridgestone's website they  have the Tour BX has an over 105 ss and mine is not close to that.  Tour BX did well on the mgs test also for medium and slower players.  

Edited August 30, 2021 by larryd3

[Myherobobhope]

I'm really looking forward to trying this... but I want to get better launch data for myself first... I'll head up to the simulator tomorrow and see what I can do. 

 

I'm very curious to see what people get fit into vs their gamer... 

 

It will be especially interesting to see how things shake out versus the self fitting I did via the MGS ball test.

[arbeck]

7 minutes ago, Myherobobhope said:

I'm really looking forward to trying this... but I want to get better launch data for myself first... I'll head up to the simulator tomorrow and see what I can do. 

 

I'm very curious to see what people get fit into vs their gamer... 

 

It will be especially interesting to see how things shake out versus the self fitting I did via the MGS ball test.

 

It will be more interesting if you happen to be an outlier type of player. I'm in the middle of the bell curve. My driver is 5* up AoA, 14* launch, 2500RPM of spin, 140MPH ball speed. With a 7i (31* of loft) I'm 17* launch, 117MPH ball speed, 5* down AoA, and 6000RPM of spin.

 

I don't need a ball that spins a lot more and I don't need to kill spin either. Because I don't need anything special, fitting myself wasn't really a hard task given the data.

[Myherobobhope]

10 minutes ago, arbeck said:

 

It will be more interesting if you happen to be an outlier type of player. I'm in the middle of the bell curve. My driver is 5* up AoA, 14* launch, 2500RPM of spin, 140MPH ball speed. With a 7i (31* of loft) I'm 17* launch, 117MPH ball speed, 5* down AoA, and 6000RPM of spin.

 

I don't need a ball that spins a lot more and I don't need to kill spin either. Because I don't need anything special, fitting myself wasn't really a hard task given the data.

Yeah, I generate a decent amount of spin, and just moved into a lower spin ball as recommended by MGS... (I have both the Srixon Z-Star and Snell MTB-X). I'm going to get my numbers with those balls and see what it spits out for me... I've bought a number of experimental ball packs this season, so it's definitely worth the money for me!

[The Pearl]

Went ahead and did it.

 

You get several attempts to "start over" to play with various inputs.  Probably 5 times or so.

 

90 MPH,  1-8 hdcp.  I tend to be lower trajectory and low spin off the driver. I like a firm ball with lots of greenside spin.  I play mostly the ProV1X and sometimes throw in the AVX.

 

Like Arbeck I have done an adequate job of fitting myself from trial and error and the MGS ball test data.

 

I changed the parameters around just for fun and mostly got the same balls popping up, but in all cases the ProV1X and AVX were not far off score wise.

 

Two balls popped up which were surprises,  Chrome Soft X and the Maxfli Tour X.   Two other balls popped up that I already had on my list were the Bridgestone B XS and the Vice Pro Plus, so I was glad to see those two pop up.

 

Maxfli Tour X was probably the biggest surprise. 

 

One other surprise is that some of the balls that you wouldn't think would do well in the wind actually scored well.  

Edited August 30, 2021 by The Pearl

[arbeck]

4 minutes ago, The Pearl said:

Went ahead and did it.

 

You get several attempts to "start over" to play with various inputs.  Probably 5 times or so.

 

90 MPH,  1-8 hdcp.  I tend to be lower trajectory and low spin off the driver. I like a firm ball with lots of greenside spin.  I play mostly the ProV1X and sometimes throw in the AVX.

 

Like Arbeck I have done an adequate job of fitting myself from trial and error and the MGS ball test data.

 

I changed the parameters around just for fun and mostly got the same balls popping up, but in all cases the ProV1X and AVX were not far off score wise.

 

Two balls popped up which were surprises,  Chrome Soft X and the Maxfli Tour X.   Two other balls popped up that I already had on my list were the Bridgestone B XS and the Vice Pro Plus, so I was glad to see those two pop up.

 

Maxfli Tour X was probably the biggest surprise. 

 

One other surprise is that some of the balls that you wouldn't think would do well in the wind actually scored well.  

I think the wind has more to do with dimple pattern than anything else. We tend to think spinny balls are bad in the wind, but in reality the dimple pattern has much more to do with the wind than anything else. And the big ball guys have a lot more ability to do wind tunnel testing and the like on their balls than DTC brands.

[The Pearl]

4 minutes ago, arbeck said:

I think the wind has more to do with dimple pattern than anything else. We tend to think spinny balls are bad in the wind, but in reality the dimple pattern has much more to do with the wind than anything else. And the big ball guys have a lot more ability to do wind tunnel testing and the like on their balls than DTC brands.

 

Great take.

[DrDon]

6 hours ago, arbeck said:

the Chromesoft X or the Srixon Z-Star XV. They were a 92.3% and 92.1% match to me. My current ball is the Snell MTB-X, which is "only" a 91.7% match.

 

I get suspicious when seeing results reported to this level of precision . . . . i.e., to the tenth of a percent.

[Myherobobhope]

I’m heading to a simulator today and will do my ball fitting then… apparently you can fit in multiple parameters to see how things change… 

 

im going to do one fitting with my non launch monitor numbers, and then one with the numbers and see how things change… if you want me to try anything else, shoot me a note.

 

Im also going to compare suggestions for Louisville vs Idaho…

[Abh159]

Just out of curiosity is there a free version of this, or did all of you pay $40 to see the results?

[larryd3]

1 hour ago, Abh159 said:

Just out of curiosity is there a free version of this, or did all of you pay $40 to see the results?

paid the $40.  but as mentioned above, you can run it several times with different parameters and get the results for each one.  I changed mine around some but really didn't change the ball recommendations much at all.  

[Myherobobhope]

1 hour ago, larryd3 said:

paid the $40.  but as mentioned above, you can run it several times with different parameters and get the results for each one.  I changed mine around some but really didn't change the ball recommendations much at all.  

My biggest change in results was asking for a slightly lower launch, which I found interesting...

 

Some quick thoughts:

1. You can play with your parameters 5 times total. ANY change you make is one use... I went through 3 uses going from my "on course yardages" to my simulator numbers to trying balls at a different altitude (Srixon XV was the top ball all three times)

2. The parameters are a little wonky... the 7 iron fitting part offers you No workability, some workability and workable as options... you can't opt out of the decision... putter feel is the same way... though it doesn't seem to factor into the results all that much.

3. I couldn't find a way to access previous fittings. So my final fitting was for "non flier" balls and I can't see the base fitting I did originally... Maybe I should have e-mailed each option to myself.

 

Overall, I think it's pretty neat, but there is definitely work to be done... I think they tried to limit the number of fittings you could do to combat fitting a variety of people on one account... They could have prevented this by limiting the times you can change the launch paramaters, and then allowed unlimited play with the other settings...

 

In other words have a: What are your ball flight numbers? (and have that require some work to change) and then "where are you playing" and have it spit out ball recommendations... would have been an easy way to offer more options without giving the cow away.

[Myherobobhope]

Ping customer service gave me another round of 5... appreciate the level of support!

[larryd3]

@Myherobobhope just noticed the JB low bounce 58 in your bag.  It's really a great wedge.  I'm really enjoying mine.    Now back to our regularly scheduled program on ball fitting.  😀

[Myherobobhope]

32 minutes ago, larryd3 said:

@Myherobobhope just noticed the JB low bounce 58 in your bag.  It's really a great wedge.  I'm really enjoying mine.    Now back to our regularly scheduled program on ball fitting.  😀

Yeah, really like it as well! It has paired great with the 286.

 

So I am going to have 5 more fitting, thanks to PING... I'm going to use one to get my "official" results back... and then burn the other 4 doing random stuff, I think... I wonder what ball it would fit Bryson into?

[TNGolfer8]

3 hours ago, Myherobobhope said:

Yeah, really like it as well! It has paired great with the 286.

 

So I am going to have 5 more fitting, thanks to PING... I'm going to use one to get my "official" results back... and then burn the other 4 doing random stuff, I think... I wonder what ball it would fit Bryson into?

For Bryson??  Definitely a Pinnacle.  🙂

[golfday]

Next someone who has done this needs to take a sleeve of their old balls (or another non-suggested ball) and a sleeve of each of their top suggested balls to a monitor and see how big the differences are. It will be interesting to see if their recommendations hold, and by how much. Subjective outdoor testing between your old ball and selected ball would be cool too.

 

 

[arbeck]

7 minutes ago, golfday said:

Next someone who has done this needs to take a sleeve of their old balls (or another non-suggested ball) and a sleeve of each of their top suggested balls to a monitor and see how big the differences are. It will be interesting to see if their recommendations hold, and by how much. Subjective outdoor testing between your old ball and selected ball would be cool too.

 

 

Unless the ball you were playing was a horrible fit, there's very little on course testing is going to tell you. You're going to be talking about a few yards of distance, a few feet of height, and a few hundred RPMs of spin. For an non elite ball striker, you'd need to hit a lot of shots before those small of differences actually appear in the noise generated by the inconsistency of your strike.

 

If you are a high spin player playing a high spin ball and you do an on course test versus a low spin ball, you can probably spot the difference. The opposite is also true. But if you are playing a ball that's decently suited to you, good luck spotting the difference on the course. You really aren't going to be able to find the difference without a launch monitor. And if the primary difference between what you are playing and what it recommends is wind performance, you will actually need wind, a trackman, and the ability to hit lots of premium balls downrange.

[Myherobobhope]

1 hour ago, golfday said:

Next someone who has done this needs to take a sleeve of their old balls (or another non-suggested ball) and a sleeve of each of their top suggested balls to a monitor and see how big the differences are. It will be interesting to see if their recommendations hold, and by how much. Subjective outdoor testing between your old ball and selected ball would be cool too.

 

 

So I redid my testing again today... and got fit into the Bridgestone B X... (as have multiple other people I've talked to... especially if you put WORKABILITY down to 0).

 

It's definitely my favorite ball I've played this season. I don't trust my launch numbers with driver in my monitor, because I hit the ceiling on my follow through. 

 

It's interesting what the optimizer optimizes for when you pull various levers... it seems to give a lot of preference to how balls do in the wind. 

 

Fun tool, probably not worth $40 at this point... I think they need to fine tune the inputs and spit out data differently.

[golfday]

1 hour ago, arbeck said:

Unless the ball you were playing was a horrible fit, there's very little on course testing is going to tell you. You're going to be talking about a few yards of distance, a few feet of height, and a few hundred RPMs of spin. For an non elite ball striker, you'd need to hit a lot of shots before those small of differences actually appear in the noise generated by the inconsistency of your strike.

 

If you are a high spin player playing a high spin ball and you do an on course test versus a low spin ball, you can probably spot the difference. The opposite is also true. But if you are playing a ball that's decently suited to you, good luck spotting the difference on the course. You really aren't going to be able to find the difference without a launch monitor. And if the primary difference between what you are playing and what it recommends is wind performance, you will actually need wind, a trackman, and the ability to hit lots of premium balls downrange.

Yeah, I'm not expecting much of a difference either but I think it would be fun to see if the outputs from the system can be validated in some way. 

[golfday]

25 minutes ago, Myherobobhope said:

So I redid my testing again today... and got fit into the Bridgestone B X... (as have multiple other people I've talked to... especially if you put WORKABILITY down to 0).

 

It's definitely my favorite ball I've played this season. I don't trust my launch numbers with driver in my monitor, because I hit the ceiling on my follow through. 

 

It's interesting what the optimizer optimizes for when you pull various levers... it seems to give a lot of preference to how balls do in the wind. 

 

Fun tool, probably not worth $40 at this point... I think they need to fine tune the inputs and spit out data differently.

That's really interesting. The heavy weighting of wind performance makes it seem like Ping thinks the biggest difference between similar ball models is their dimple patterns.

 

Side note, I was at a nice club two winters ago that had just installed a launch monitor for the members. They hadn't built a permanent station yet so they had a rarely used section of dining area blocked off for the monitor (the room was previously kind of a waste of space, not in the bar but also not in the dining room area), and only after setting it up did they realize the ceiling was too low. Maybe the pros were all short. The ceiling was destroyed. So many people had hit it and put holes in it on backswings.

[adamnbomb]

Ballnamic works great. I paid $40 and was able to adjust my parameters within the allotted amount of times to get my preferred ball!

[Myherobobhope]

22 minutes ago, adamnbomb said:

Ballnamic works great. I paid $40 and was able to adjust my parameters within the allotted amount of times to get my preferred ball!

Haha… it definitely has that feel… I also wonder if it factors in the type of ball your reported data comes from. 
 

I’m not willing to spend $40 to find out!

[RCGA]

Is the $40 a one-time fitting fee? Or like a membership where you can run different parameters? 

 

Does anyone know what wind ball they recommend for a high SS player? 

[Myherobobhope]

11 minutes ago, RCGA said:

Is the $40 a one-time fitting fee? Or like a membership where you can run different parameters? 

 

Does anyone know what wind ball they recommend for a high SS player? 

For $40 you can change all the parameters five times (if you do this, make sure to email yourself the results, as they are not saved between each change)... the e-mail also doesn't include the parameters you gave them... it's just the ball you got fit into.

 

Bridgestone B X is the the high swing speed wind ball. That and the ProV1. Based on 156 CHS these were the results I got:

 

https://ballfitting.com/results/d0327687-66b7-4988-9105-bd757b5eacd2

[RCGA]

6 minutes ago, Myherobobhope said:

For $40 you can change all the parameters five times (if you do this, make sure to email yourself the results, as they are not saved between each change)... the e-mail also doesn't include the parameters you gave them... it's just the ball you got fit into.

 

Bridgestone B X is the the high swing speed wind ball. That and the ProV1. Based on 156 CHS these were the results I got:

 

https://ballfitting.com/results/d0327687-66b7-4988-9105-bd757b5eacd2

 

Hmm, hard to infer much from the results, especially when you cross reference them with the 2021 Golf Ball Test

 

Might as well pick a brand you like and choose the best option based on their marketing. 

[Myherobobhope]

23 minutes ago, RCGA said:

 

Hmm, hard to infer much from the results, especially when you cross reference them with the 2021 Golf Ball Test

 

Might as well pick a brand you like and choose the best option based on their marketing. 

I wish I had saved the first ball fitting, as it put me in the Srixon Z Star XV and I'm not sure what differences there were.... 

 

I "fit myself" into the Z Star recently based on the MGS testing, and it's fine, but I'm definitely giving up some ball speed chasing lower spin... I hit some absolute rockets with the Bridgestone, which I think is in part of the aerodynamics (as shown by PING).

 

I think it's a cool too, I don't think it's worth $40. I think it COULD be worth $40 but needs some tweaks... I think there is some interesting stuff to be done for choosing "an away ball"... I was curious as to what it would recommend for me at altitude. 

[larryd3]

1 hour ago, RCGA said:

 

Hmm, hard to infer much from the results, especially when you cross reference them with the 2021 Golf Ball Test

 

Might as well pick a brand you like and choose the best option based on their marketing. 

I disagree on using the brand's marketing as a way to choose.  And cross-referencing with the ball test worked pretty well for me.  Time will tell, I need to get testing on the balls recommended by the Ping system.  Still surprised by how low my gamer ball was in the ratings.  To me Ping is independent, since they aren't selling golf balls, so it's a decent tool.  Nothing is going to be perfect but I feel like I got reasonable information for the $40.  

Edited September 2, 2021 by larryd3