TaylorMade Range balls

[Supa Dupa Fly]

I am in the midst of testing out some new irons, and was quite surprised that I was losing about 10 yards on my strikes. Now, I'm trying to figure out if it's me, or are these range balls that flight limited. Picture shows the model of TM range balls I hit, they're not as new as in the pic, but they're in pretty good condition.

 

Also, does anybody know if a range ball can have the same ball speed as a premium ball, yet have more limited flight? Or will the range ball always have worse speed AND flight?

 

 

[MattM97]

Those are probably a 2-Piece surlyn ball and I'm sure durability is more important than performance. 

[Jeff58]

Range balls like the ones you are showing have high compression, so they have pretty good ball speed, and very thick, very hard surlyn covers, so that they’re durable. The side effect of this combination is that while they don’t launch particularly high (like a low compression model), they spin like crazy off wedges and irons. The result is that the spin creates more and more drag, and the faster you swing, the more that drag kills distance.

[Supa Dupa Fly]

1 hour ago, Jeff58 said:

Range balls like the ones you are showing have high compression, so they have pretty good ball speed, and very thick, very hard surlyn covers, so that they’re durable. The side effect of this combination is that while they don’t launch particularly high (like a low compression model), they spin like crazy off wedges and irons. The result is that the spin creates more and more drag, and the faster you swing, the more that drag kills distance.

 

So this leads me to 2 questions with regards to compression:

1. Does this mean that range balls should have higher ball speed compared to a regular ball like Pro V1?

2. If I were to get a GC3, would it be able to pick up a range ball and treat it accordingly? Or would it treat the carry distances as if it were a Pro V1?

[Yacho]

For those interested in range balls vs your everyday premium offerings, M-G-S threw one into their 2021 ball comparison shootout.  The used a Pinnacle, but it's pretty standard for a range offering.  Short version is, driver performance was like that of a higher compression "X" ball, spun like mad off the irons, and spun very little off of finesse wedge shots. 

[Jeff58]

2 hours ago, Supa Dupa Fly said:

 

So this leads me to 2 questions with regards to compression:

1. Does this mean that range balls should have higher ball speed compared to a regular ball like Pro V1?

2. If I were to get a GC3, would it be able to pick up a range ball and treat it accordingly? Or would it treat the carry distances as if it were a Pro V1?

 

Good questions 

 

1. While its initial velocity is high, it looses it more quickly. However, since any LM that doesn’t trace a ball’s entire flight extrapolates based on its launch statistics, it can be badly fooled.

 

2. Contrary to point 1 above, better LM’s have selectable ball models in software. Here though, there is a pretty wide variety of “range ball” physical models, and the likelihood of an exact match is essentially zero. Standard balls and LM’s also interact in this way as well of course. The safest way to test gear indoors is to use V1’s (usually the 2021 model), as that is what the LM is using for a reference.