Member Review: Bridgestone e12 Contact

[CTG77]

Bridgestone 2021 e12 CONTACT Golf Balls

https://www.bridgestonegolf.com/en-us/balls/e-series0/e12-contact MSRP:  $34.99

1. Available for $29.99 at multiple outlets, such as Golf Galaxy / Dicks / PGA SuperStore
2. Available in Matte Yellow, Matte Green, and Matte Red for same price
3. 3-piece ball with 326 dimples (per Bridgestone)
4. Rated compression = 61--> Should lead to lower long-game spin and high launch
5. New technologies and Bridgestone’s claims:
6. FLEXATIV Cover Technology
   1.  Supposed to increase velocity with less spin on driver
   2.  Contact Force Dimple
   3.  Slows horizontal rotation on flight. 
   4.  Increases contact time for more energy transfer on longer shots = more distance 
   5.  Contact time on club face increases ball spin and control around greens
   6. Another key to this is that it’s made in the USA in Bridgestone’s own plant, so it’s a lower-cost ball that is not going to be affected by the ball plant fire in Taiwan.

 

Balls to which I will compare the e12:

1.      Srixon QStar Tour Divide (red / yellow) - retail price $34.99

         a.      72 Compression

         b.      3-piece ball

         c.       388 dimples

         d.      Urethane cover

2.      OnCore Vero X1 (yellow)- retail price $40.00

         a.      85 compression

         b.      4-piece ball

         c.       318 dimples

         d.      Urethane cover

3.      Maxfli Tour (Yellow) - retail price $39.99 / $70 for 2 dozen

         a.      85 compression

         b.      Cast Urethane Cover

         c.      3-piece ball

         d.      Center of Gravity Balanced

 

Testing Data will be collected via a combination of visual reference, SwingU ball tracking, and a Nikon CoolShot Pro II range finder.  If on-course time allows, I will attempt to set up a SwingCaddie SC300 launch monitor to get more detailed spin rate and launch angle data.

Edited October 27, 2023 by CTG77

[CTG77]

Well, I did not mean to post that quite yet (appearently hitting enter submits a post?), but it's there, so I guess my thread is live now.  It might be a week or 2 before I have time to finish everything properly.  More coming soon hopefully.

[CTG77]

Hello everyone, here's Part 1 of my review with some of my early short game testing data. 

 

The testing was done in 60 degree weather on dry Bermuda fringe / fairway / rough hitting to a dry / firm Bermuda green.  Our club maintains 2 actual greens using the same strain of grass as 1 of our 2 courses for chipping and bunker work, so it's a great area in which to practice short game when one has the time. Testing was done with two (2) wedges, my (now) raw Vokey SM9 55F10 (bent from 56) and 60M08 (both shafted w/ an MMT125TX).   I had to cut out the Srixon balls because I had run out of them in my bag after the last round I'd played and did not have them to test.

 

Since this was focused on the short game, everything I do in that area focuses on one metric:  Getting up and down to save pars

 

Of the 3 balls I tested, all were very comparable on any chip / pitch that I did where I planned for the ball to roll out with the 60* wedge from flat lies from a fairway or fringe position.  However, it was slightly easier to get the e12 consistently close to the hole with the 56* wedge when doing flat chips from medium (30-60') range because they came off the face with a consistent firm feel, and did not have a tendency to compress at all with any deviations in swing speed on the chip / pitch.  If you chip / pitch with a lower lofted club and run the ball to the hole on flatter / level green complexes from smooth / fairway / fringe lies, these would be a good ball to try.  Of the 60-70 shots I hit, the only 3 that went in the cup were 25' pitches w/ the 56* wedge w/ the Bridgestones from the fringe.

 

Conversely, when hitting out of any kind of rough, from a lie that was below the green to any extent, or from a lie that required a carry over anything with a "drop and stop" spin on the ball, both the Maxfli Tour and the OnCore Vero X1 had extremely higher success rates at being in 1-putt range than did the e12 Contact.  That all said, the yellow balls do have firmer feels than their white counterparts when hit off of thin or fairway lies, so they almost felt the same as the e12 off the club face.  The spin was noticeably different though with the urethane balls versus the e12, and especially if the ball landed at all on a downhill lie.  In those situations, the e12 would just not stop at all and would run out 4-5' farther than the OnCore or Maxfli when hit from the same spot with the same swing speed and when landing in a very similar location.  I repeated this multiple times to be certain, but each time the OnCore and Maxfli balls landed closer to the hole.

 

I tested some of the white versions of the OnCore and Maxfli Tour balls once I got to the putting green because of what I was seeing off the face on the wedges that had me concerned about the firmness and confirmed the yellow balls did feel almost as firm as the e12 did, even though they both had a urethane cover. 

 

My putter is a Sik DW 2.0 C Series and I have been using it a little over a year if you count the time I spent using my son's version of it before I got my own at Christmas last year.  I am 5-6 putts per round better with this than I was with my Scotty Cameron Newport Studio Style putter, and average about 1.7-1.8 putts per hole.

 

I putted each of the 5 balls (white and yellow OnCore Vero X1, white and yellow Maxfli Tour, and Bridgestone e12 Contact) for about 30+ minutes from multiple distances ranging from 3' to 50'.  On longer putts, the e12 was ok, but the firmness made it hard to control distance and it certainly did not feel as good as a premium ball like the Maxfli, Vero, or a Pro V1.  On shorter putts, I did not notice any real differences between the e12 and the Maxfli or OnCore balls, except when I left the flagstick in to putt.  In those cases, I felt that the e12 was more likely to bounce off the same flagstick and stay out of the hole than were the other 2 balls.  This is certainly anecdotal and needs further testing, but it just seemed like the same putt was bouncing out more frequently with the e12 than with the others. It could be that ball carries slightly more speed to the hole due to the firmness than the others do, and that's what resulted in the ball bouncing out.

 

I only kept the stats for putting with the yellow OnCore and Maxfli balls from each hole, and did most of it in my head as I went and just gave each a "check" mark for winning that distance as I moved on.  Overall, I made the most putts at each distance with the OnCore Vero X1, followed very closely by the Maxfli Tour.  The e12 was a distant 3rd behind the other 2 balls and did not win at any distance.
 

Part 2 will follow shortly with some on-course / subjective feedback from a round I played last week.

[CTG77]

Ok, after that very lengthy Part 1, here's my much more subjective review of my on-course observations of the Bridgestone e12 Contact:

 

I was playing by myself, with 2 groups of 5 stack up in front of me and no one behind me at all for the entire round because it was 55 degrees, windy, misting, and cloudy, which for most people here in Texas might as well make it the Arctic Circle.  Thus, I basically had the course to myself to hit as many test shots as I wanted.  Fortunately, I both play and officiate ice hockey and grew up in the Midwest, so I am definitely built for this weather and was happy to have the time to relax and get outside after a rough couple of weeks of work.

 

1.  Off the tee, it felt very similar and went at least as far as the OnCore or Maxfli on anything that wasn't a pure center strike.  However, when I flushed a center strike with the urethane balls, it was clear that the OnCore and Maxfli balls flew farther and straighter than the e12. 

 

2.  With a fairway wood or hybrid, the e12 was solid and had good flight and rollout characteristics.  I hit my 917F3 3W 272 yards with the e12 right after hitting an OnCore 263 yards with the same tailwind of about 10 MPH.

 

3.  With my long irons (4 and 5), the e12 had a lot of roll out.  I hit a 4 iron over 230 yards (210 carry / 20 rollout after landing almost pin high) at one point, out of a lie wasn't really a flyer lie.  This was unexpected and resulted in a missed green as my normal longest 4 iron is about 215-220 under those temperature and wind conditions.  

 

4.  With the 6-PW irons, the urethane balls started to show clear benefits over the e12 in on-course performance, maybe more so in this range than anywhere else in the bag other than with the putter actually.  I felt that the distance control was harder for me to gauge with these than w/ either the OnCore or Maxfli, especially the shorter the iron got.

 

5.  Other than with the wedge shots mentioned in Part 1 (56* wedge on flat / smooth turf to level green with planned rollout), the urethane balls were simply better around the green, especially if I had to elevate the ball for any reason or was hitting it out of the rough.

 

All of the above in Parts 1 and 2 said, if the e12 were found on sale at say $25 a dozen or a little less, it's a really good ball for most players, especially those who don't have access to ID.me discounts for Srixon balls or OnCore veterans' pricing.  Even then, the normal Maxfli pricing (especially when the annual coupons come out from certain other sites) makes it hard to argue that against going with a non-urethane ball over those.  The only area where I found the e12 to be 100% clearly superior was durability, and that was easily a win for the e12.  None of the balls I hit over and over with my wedges looked anything like a used ball, and the OnCore and Maxfli balls all showed some signs of use.

 

Part 3 will be simulator testing against the above listed balls this weekend since it doesn't look like the rain is ever going to let up at a time when I don't work here in the DFW area.

[CTG77]

Since it rained in DFW all day Thursday and I'm busy most of the weekend (and it's still soaking wet anyway), I got out to the PGA SuperStore last night.  I spent about an hour on their simulator and was hitting the ball pretty well with everything but my driver, and that wasn't bad...too much draw, but not terrible most of the time.  I hit the following clubs, with about 10-15 shots per club per ball:

1. Vokey SM9 55*S10
2. Mizuno Pro 223 PW
3. Mizuno Pro 223 8 iron
4. Mizuno Pro 223 4 iron
5. Callaway Epic Flash Tour Certified 8.5* set to 7.5* / Neutral

Here are the balls I was hitting and their performance:

1. Bridgestone e12 Contact:
   1. The e12 had good lateral (side to side) dispersion with all clubs, but was hard to gauge distance dispersion with it.  I had issues dialing in flighted shots particularly, which are critical to scoring well on hard and fast Bermuda greens when the wind is blowing 20-25 mph in Texas.
   2. The e12 was shorter than either the Maxfli or the OnCore off the 4 iron or the Driver, and was easier to pull left for me.  I had a much harder time not hooking this ball out of play for some reason.  This actually matches up with how I hit it on the course the one round I had played with it last week.
2. Maxfli Tour Yellow:
   1. Best ball overall for flighted shots and short irons by far.  I got more green hits on the 75 yard wedge shots with both full lofted swings and lower flighted swings with the Maxfli than I did with all other balls combined.  It just seems to be a really good fit for my swing speed.
   2. Off the 4 iron, this was flying well.  I was hitting it a little high with the driver, but then again, even with my driver at 7.5*, I've been hitting everything a little high lately, so who knows.
3. OnCore Vero X1: 
   1. This was the 2nd best ball on short irons and was close to the Maxfli on lowerflighted shots.  It is slightly harder than the Maxfli though, and doesn't perform as well on full swing lofted shots for me.
   2. This was the best ball for long game shots for me, especially with the driver.  This matches my on-course data too.  I hit this a ton on the course with a very penetrating ball flight.  This is the closest to a ProV1 that I've tested recently, though it feels harder on putts and chips than a new ProV1.

 

[CTG77]

Adding this here in case someone finds this post after the main review thread is closed or buried:

 

Overall, my thoughts are pretty simple:

 

For $25, this would be a good ball to try if you suffer from a huge problem with excessive spin on your long irons / driver AND you play a course where your greens are slower and your normal short game approach is a pitch and run type shot instead of bringing something in from the air and asking it to drop and stop.  These won't do that last part very well unless you have a very new set of wedges and a very good lie, and even then, they won't do it as well as even the cheapest urethane balls like the Maxfli Tour or OnCore Vero X1 will.

 

If these balls are priced over $28 / dozen at retail, I could not recommend them, because one can almost always find the Maxfli Tour series on sale for $118 for four (4) dozen, and that ball clearly beats the e12 in every metric head to head in my testing.  My son, who is normally a ProV1 snob because of his high school golf days, putted 3 times with the e12 and threw it back to me because he hated it.  He kept the Maxfli I gave him to test if that says anything.  For those w/ ID.me discount access, you can get much better performing Srixon or TaylorMade balls at a better price than this.

 

All that said, price notwithstanding, there were some shots I hit with this ball that genuinely surprised me at how much it stayed out of trouble given how it felt coming off the face.  I hit several drives that felt like they were going OB into people's front yards that stayed in the left rough.  While not great shots, they were still in bounds and better than being down 2 more strokes.  A ball with more long game spin might have left me laying 3 there had I spun one up into the wind.