Do we need to start floating our golf balls again?

[95124hacker]

To no one’s surprise, Bryson floats his golf balls in epsom saltwater to find the balance / center of gravity. This allows him to roll his putts end over end.

 

While I used to do that with the old liquid center, wound balls, I thought today’s ball design & manufacturing was much better, so this balancing process was of little value.

 

Does anyone here still do this, either manually or with Check Go Pro? If so, how off-balanced are they? Are some brands worst than others?

[hammergolf]

5 minutes ago, 95124hacker said:

To no one’s surprise, Bryson floats his golf balls in epsom saltwater to find the balance / center of gravity. This allows him to roll his putts end over end.

 

While I used to do that with the old liquid center, wound balls, I thought today’s ball design & manufacturing was much better, so this balancing process was of little value.

 

Does anyone here still do this, either manually or with Check Go Pro? If so, how off-balanced are they? Are some brands worst than others?

EVERY golf ball will not be perfect balanced, no matter the manufacturer. The question is how much does the imbalance actually affect performance? I’ve never done it, but some people swear by it.

[Wardonation]

I went for a fitting 6 years ago with Guerin Rife in SD. He has a putting robot there. We were talking about "balancing" golf balls. He did a demo for me with 20ft putts. I cannot tell you how amazing the results were, it blew my mind. He used a "Check n Go" and I bought one that day. I use it on every ball. Every once in a while a ball will not stay in the machine, that is how out of balance it really is. When I decided to lay Srixon balls years ago, on average 3 to 4 out of a dozen went straight into my shag bag. 

[Neo1]

I've done the epsom salt in water with a few dozen balls and most balls are pretty balanced returning very near or exactly to where I marked it with a sharpie, I tested Chrome Soft, Z-star diamond, ProV1X, ProV1...strangely the worst offender was a ProV1 that somehow got pass QC check and this thing came back up on all different sides like it had a mind of its own....I think it comes down to the luck of the draw and any manufacturer could have bad batches. I use to be convinced Titleist was the best in QC but check for yourself...I'm more interested in him lining up 2 dimples on 5 foot putts and in, that's blowing my mind.

Edited June 16 by Neo1

[st1800e]

1 minute ago, Neo1 said:

this thing came back up on all different sides like it had a mind of its own

I think that means it’s balanced.   No heavy side to repeatedly balance at the same point.  

[Neo1]

2 minutes ago, st1800e said:

I think that means it’s balanced.   No heavy side to repeatedly balance at the same point.  

 

you're right, the 1 Prov1 was coming back exactly to the same spot...this was about 3 years ago and I did about 6 dozen balls at once and never did it again since, point was the ProV1 was the worst of the bunch and everything else seemed balanced.

[runningblind11]

3 hours ago, Neo1 said:

I've done the epsom salt in water with a few dozen balls and most balls are pretty balanced returning very near or exactly to where I marked it with a sharpie, I tested Chrome Soft, Z-star diamond, ProV1X, ProV1...strangely the worst offender was a ProV1 that somehow got pass QC check and this thing came back up on all different sides like it had a mind of its own....I think it comes down to the luck of the draw and any manufacturer could have bad batches. I use to be convinced Titleist was the best in QC but check for yourself...I'm more interested in him lining up 2 dimples on 5 foot putts and in, that's blowing my mind.

What is this 2 dimple thing? Haven't heard of that one yet. 

[grochol17]

On 6/15/2024 at 10:41 PM, 95124hacker said:

To no one’s surprise, Bryson floats his golf balls in epsom saltwater to find the balance / center of gravity. This allows him to roll his putts end over end.

 

While I used to do that with the old liquid center, wound balls, I thought today’s ball design & manufacturing was much better, so this balancing process was of little value.

 

Does anyone here still do this, either manually or with Check Go Pro? If so, how off-balanced are they? Are some brands worst than others?

 

I'd take any of Bryson's "testing" with a grain of salt.  Remember when he supposedly did testing to "prove" that you should always leave the flackstick in.  But, then when it was tested by an actual scientist (I think it was a mechanical engineer), they showed that 99.9% of the time the flag should be pulled?  And notice that the putts Bryson hit on 18 at the PGA and US Open, arguably the two most pressure packed putts he's hit this season, were both with the flag out?

 

As for the balls being out of balance, he said that he floats the golf balls in salt water because "back in the day" there was an issue with golf balls being out of balance.  But he also says that, for most of the golf balls he gets, it isn't any issue.  What he doesn't say is if there's any evidence that the rare ones that he thinks are unbalanced actually cause any issues with his putting.  So, he's really just doing this to make himself feel better.

 

Side note... if a ball is out of balanced enough that it can curve offline when it is rolling across a green and not making all that many rotations, shouldn't it fly wildly offline when spinning with thousands of RPMs on a full shot?  In other words, if modern golf balls were so poorly manufactured that they were off balance enough that it mattered, wouldn't we all see shots randomly fly offline?

[lefthack]

Again? I never knew this was a thing. 🤣 

 

<edit> ok, this got the better of me. I just got a bunch of cheap balls from China and I wanted to see how they floated. Wow, you could see a defined low spot. Ok, let me check a Pro V1 to see the difference. I guess I was expecting too much because the results were the same. 

 

What did I learn? Nothing. Maybe aim the low spot down range? Or up? I have no idea. 

Edited June 18 by lefthack