Golf Ball Brands - Identifying Years

[Headfirst]

Hey everyone.

I know this has been touched on before but I’m looking for a way to identify exact years of the major brands of balls and their models (Taylormade, Callaway, Titleist, Srixon, Bridgestone, Volvik, etc).

For example (picture attached), how can I identify my year of Callaway warbird?

 

I know there is a page for Titlesit ProV1 - but even that one only goes up to 2019.

 

Does anyone else have any leads on sources for other makers?

 

Thank you!

[Habanero]

The best way to find out is to use the USGA Conforming Lists. You can find many of the older ones on golfballcoverstory.com (BTW: Harrison's book is worth buying, although it only covers Titleists until around 2019 or so. I am still desperately searching for the 1996 thru 2001 conforming lists. Be warned, it takes some practice and a lot of work to get accustomed to all the little differences and nuances in markings. Spalding/Top-Flite for example is pretty terrible. They used the same names but different logos, for example. You have to know the year range when certain logos were used in that case.

 

The Hatcher books sold on Amazon etc. are full of errors, extremely expensive (for what they are), repetitive and not really worth buying. I spent a lot of $ on them - but you can find much more accurate information in the Conforming Lists.

[Headfirst]

Thank you very much for the response and information @Habanero!

Edited October 19, 2023 by Headfirst

[leftyb]

I've struggle with this issue - I'm a self admitted golf ball hunter at my local course. I routinely find Pro V1, Pro V1x, Z-Stars, Vice, etc but knowing how they change the "formula" for lack of a better term, I can't tell if it's this years, last years, 1985, or whatever.

 

But then again, there's a reason I'm hunting balls...I'm usually trying to find mine in a location the course architect didn't intend for my ball to be 🤣

[Habanero]

@leftyb - well, try the links I mentioned above. The best things are mentioned there. Get the book for the Titleists from Harrison because this will show you a bit how the whole system works - in some ways it is similar with other manufacturers. But, it takes a lot of patience to understand the systems of the different manufacturers in detail. The recent USGA Conforming Lists are clear enough, however. The ones from the 70's through 90's are somewhat lacking for the more "complicated" manufacturers like Spalding but you can determine most golf balls by release date in that way. Another, tedious way, is to check eBay listings with sleeves. Some of them have years printed on them, others can at least show a date before which they could not have been released by checking patent no.s with Google patents. Sadly, most eBay listings don't picture all the important info you need - pictures of pole and seam plus pictures of relevant text on the sleeves.

 

BTW, if you can find Conforming Lists from 1996 to 2000, I would be most grateful if you could help me. I did find the 2001 list just yesterday. Plus a few better lists for 2002 to 2005 without the lacking special characters in the lists on golfballcoverstory.com.