Results shocked me a little - Chrome Soft - Q Star Tour - Bridgestone BRX

[jjfcpa]

Played golf Rancho Las Palmas in Rancho Mirage, CA.  Picked a tee time when quite possibly no one else would be playing and sure enough, I ended up teeing off by myself.  

 

I decided to do a test that I've wanted to do for quite some time.  I wanted to compare the Callaway Chrome Soft (2022), Bridgestone BRX, and Srixon Q Star Tour.  Why these three balls.

 

I've been playing the Chrome Soft for the last year and been very happy with it, but the BRX actually performed better in the MGS ball test; however, it was using the prior version of these balls.

 

A number of golfers on this forum have recommended the new Q Star Tour and I wanted to see how it compared.

 

I played 3 holes - a par 5, par 3, and par 4 and hit all three balls from tee to cup.  If I felt I didn't make a good strike, I re-hit another ball of the same brand.  I had 3 of each ball to ensure the comparison was representable.

 

First tee on the West course from an elevated tee and I honestly expected the BRX to come out on top.  Results?  BRX and Q Star were literally next to each other.  CS was 15 years ahead.  Not what I expected.  The CS was the longest on every drive and I ended up using the driver on the par 3 because it was a 200 yard par 3.  

 

The BRX should have been the longest with irons, but what I found was that two of the balls were very close - the CS and BRX, and the Q Star Tour was always shorter.

 

Hitting into the greens, the CS was the most consistent on spin and the BRX released the most.  The QST was in between.

 

All in all, I think the CS was the best performer and I plan to stick with it.

[ReidE5]

Thanks for sharing! Always love to hear real world results

[doublepar93]

I’ve always thought the Chrome Soft was an excellent ball. Bought several dozen of the QST a few years back and never liked them. Thought they were short off the driver.

[Esox]

Interesting.CS was 15 yards longer? I do have to ask, what is your driver clubhead speed? The ball that performs best for one clubhead speed may not be the best for another.

[jjfcpa]

2 hours ago, Esox said:

Interesting.CS was 15 yards longer? I do have to ask, what is your driver clubhead speed? The ball that performs best for one clubhead speed may not be the best for another.

 

I don't really know my club head speed with the driver, but I'm a senior golfer and admittedly a slow swinger.  I'm not sure if these results would be duplicated for a fast swing speed, but based on all the research I've done, they should be consistently repeated at any swing speed.

 

I'm not really sure if Callaway has made changes to the CS over the last few years because I started off playing it about 6 years ago and switch to a number of other balls because I felt like it was not performing very well.  When I tried the new version a year ago, I was pleasantly surprised at the performance and have been trying to find something better ever since.  I keep coming back to it.

[jjfcpa]

I should have added, that I don't really care for balls with a compression rating about 80.  For example, the Maxfli Tour is an excellent ball as is the Oncore Elixir, but they are just a little too firm for me and I don't enjoy playing them.  Perhaps it's because I can't compress them as well as balls with lower compression.

[Longdriver295]

Sorry but Its just hard for me to believe that ANY ball is going to be 15yds longer off the Tee over another. Regardless of what your SS is unless you swing it 20mph faster on one Swing over the next Swing. Now I could see picking up 3-5yds longer but 15yds I just don't see it. It's amazing the Exaggeration in Golf. 

[phil75070]

6 minutes ago, Longdriver295 said:

Sorry but Its just hard for me to believe that ANY ball is going to be 15yds longer off the Tee over another. Regardless of what your SS is unless you swing it 20mph faster on one Swing over the next Swing. Now I could see picking up 3-5yds longer but 15yds I just don't see it. It's amazing the Exaggeration in Golf. 

The ball test by those review guys shows significant differences in distance between balls, longest to shortest. At slow swing speeds, the difference between longest and shortest is about 10 yards. Depending on how he measured his drives, 15 could be an exaggeration, but whatever it was, it was noticeable and significant to him. As swing speeds increase, the difference in distance between longest and shortest increases to almost 20 yards. 

[Longdriver295]

23 minutes ago, phil75070 said:

The ball test by those review guys shows significant differences in distance between balls, longest to shortest. At slow swing speeds, the difference between longest and shortest is about 10 yards. Depending on how he measured his drives, 15 could be an exaggeration, but whatever it was, it was noticeable and significant to him. As swing speeds increase, the difference in distance between longest and shortest increases to almost 20 yards. 

Believe what you want but I don't care how hard someone swings NO balk is going to be realistcally 20yds longer over another ball. And nobody will ever make me believe that. I've tested myself a dz different balls and my ss only changes Within 5mph from 90-95 And Not one Ball has been no more than 8yds Further than another. But that's just me and my opinion. But I don't exaggerate I'm only Realistic. There's plenty of Wrx'ers on here that will tell you they Swing 140mph on here and many on here will believe them but again that's just me.

 

All this is exactly why a player should pick a ball first from the Green and the Tee box should be last 

Edited January 8, 2023 by Longdriver295

[ChaosTheory]

I played a found CS this summer, and it was like a super ball off the irons.  In a bad way.  I was getting fliers that I don't get with QST, which is my normal ball.  I had the same problem with TM Tour Response.  I'm also a slower swing speed player.  Anyway, I'll try the CS again as I find a couple. 

[jjfcpa]

1 hour ago, Longdriver295 said:

Sorry but Its just hard for me to believe that ANY ball is going to be 15yds longer off the Tee over another. Regardless of what your SS is unless you swing it 20mph faster on one Swing over the next Swing. Now I could see picking up 3-5yds longer but 15yds I just don't see it. It's amazing the Exaggeration in Golf. 

 

I didn't really measure it, and it could have been 10 yards because the BRX and QST landed almost side by side, the CS was a little to the left and quite a bit in front.  All three were comparable swings.  At my age, I don't get a lot of SS difference on well hit balls.

 

This was also from an elevated tee but I don't think that made much difference in accounting for the results.

 

That was the first hole, which was a par 4.  The 2nd hole which was a par 3 (200 yards), the difference was about 5 yards longer for the CS, 2 yards for the BRX over the QST.

 

On the 3rd hold, a par 5, the CS was about 6 yards longer than the BRX with the QST again a few yards behind the BRX.

[jjfcpa]

1 hour ago, phil75070 said:

The ball test by those review guys shows significant differences in distance between balls, longest to shortest. At slow swing speeds, the difference between longest and shortest is about 10 yards. Depending on how he measured his drives, 15 could be an exaggeration, but whatever it was, it was noticeable and significant to him. As swing speeds increase, the difference in distance between longest and shortest increases to almost 20 yards. 

 

My personal opinion is that there is a huge difference between hitting with a launch monitor and hitting on a golf course.  I have a launch monitor at home and don't really see any significant differences with any ball using the irons.  I don't really hit balls with driver or woods on the launch monitor.  

 

When you get on the course, there are other factors that influence the performance... contact being the most important.  As I said, I tried to hit shots that felt similar to each other in order to compare performance.  The performance I saw was based on the performance on the course and not based on a launch monitor.  After playing all 3 balls for 3 holes successively, I feel very confident that the CS was the best overall perform when considering driver, woods, and irons.  

 

With regards to putting, I found the CS and BRX very similar, but I had trouble putting with the QST.  The softer compression just made me hit it too firmly.

[JDIL]

On 1/8/2023 at 8:23 AM, Longdriver295 said:

Sorry but Its just hard for me to believe that ANY ball is going to be 15yds longer off the Tee over another. Regardless of what your SS is unless you swing it 20mph faster on one Swing over the next Swing. Now I could see picking up 3-5yds longer but 15yds I just don't see it. It's amazing the Exaggeration in Golf. 

Go find yourself a 1st generation Kirkland 3 piece, and any other lower spinning top ball and go hit driver with it.  😄

[bomberman]

Low compression balls can be 10 or so yards shorter for sure. Drew cooper lost about 10 yards w a bridgestone brxs vs bx. But Drew is on the slow side for WRX😀

with only a shot or 2, absolutely you can see big differences. 

 

 

 

 

[RainShadow]

i found the Q-Star tour to be astonishingly short as well. Worthless for me, actually.