Balanced Balls

[Furrankee]

...Does Titleist's ProV1's and V1x's promise balanced ball

What about perfectly round balls? And how about TaylorMade balls? I just got to reading Pelz's research on imbalanced golf balls and how they can affect the true roll of putts, even though minute. I understand that this book "Putt like the Pros" was published 17 years ago and thought that maybe golf ball technology has improved so much that balls sold on the market nowadays come perfectly round and perfectly balanced.

Any thoughts?

David Pelz's books are good reads.

[IHFN]

I think the new technology has made it to where balls do not go out of round. The older wound balls did go out very often. Since they were thin rubber bands, they would break easily. Even if one band broke, it could cause a slightly out of round ball. Most likely it would not have been dectectable by the eye though. That is probably the example he speaks of in the book. With the solid cores and outer mantles now, I think it would be much much harder to get a ball out of round. I haven't heard of anyone making a ball go out since ProV1's took over the world. I could be wrong though... :yahoo:

[nearfall152]

Solid core balls are certainly in a much better position than wound ones in this regard, and balancing your ball will of course help. The problem occurs when the ball is struck with a lot of force (ie driver) the insides of the ball go crazy when this happens. You cannot be sure that the center of mass won't change from one ball-strike to the next.

 

Wilson 'True' balls were great, incidently. They were the first mass-produced ball to commit to being balanced.

 

Reducing variability will always help you, its just a question of how much. Some manufacturers are better than others at this, but you will also find high variability within a single dozen balls.

 

I remember reading a few years back that the old ProV was the best balanced ball (no surprise there) but even Titleist had a few outliers in each lot.

[IHFN]

Solid core balls are certainly in a much better position than wound ones in this regard, and balancing your ball will of course help. The problem occurs when the ball is struck with a lot of force (ie driver) the insides of the ball go crazy when this happens. You cannot be sure that the center of mass won't change from one ball-strike to the next.

 

Wilson 'True' balls were great, incidently. They were the first mass-produced ball to commit to being balanced.

 

Reducing variability will always help you, its just a question of how much. Some manufacturers are better than others at this, but you will also find high variability within a single dozen balls.

 

I remember reading a few years back that the old ProV was the best balanced ball (no surprise there) but even Titleist had a few outliers in each lot.

 

When did those Wilson True balls come out? I remember them, but have no clue on the time frame...

[taylormadefan]

Ben Hogan used to check all his golf balls religiously before he played; however, that was back in the 40-60's. . .

 

Tom Wishon has a similar method dissolving one cup of epsom salts in 2 cups water.

 

You spin the ball in the salt water and mark the dimple that comes up with a sharpie. Then you re-test it. If the same dimple comes up, the ball is out of round and you've identified the most stable point the ball is going to spin at.

 

I tried this with two sleeves of Bridgestone B330's, not one was out of round. . .

[Furrankee]

Ben Hogan used to check all his golf balls religiously before he played; however, that was back in the 40-60's. . .

 

Tom Wishon has a similar method dissolving one cup of epsom salts in 2 cups water.

 

You spin the ball in the salt water and mark the dimple that comes up with a sharpie. Then you re-test it. If the same dimple comes up, the ball is out of round and you've identified the most stable point the ball is going to spin at.

 

I tried this with two sleeves of Bridgestone B330's, not one was out of round. . .

 

I'm using that same test to test all my golf balls. Need to make a run to my local grocer to get the epsom salt. Regular salt doesn't work I noticed.

 

The reason I ask is cause it's unfair to the amateur buying mass produced golf balls and then having a handful of them imbalanced and not round. Touring pros have the advantage of just sifting thru all the poor balls and saving the perfect ones, unless of course money isn't an issue with some of us.

[Simp]

I believe that you're much better off spending your time practicing rather than watching golf balls float in salt water, at least these days anyway. Total waste of time IMO. Simp

[NikeTaylormade891]

The true balls were cool. The commercials were sweet. Remember iWound.

[Furrankee]

I believe that you're much better off spending your time practicing rather than watching golf balls float in salt water, at least these days anyway. Total waste of time IMO. Simp

 

I disagree. If you're a golf fanatic, everything golf related is worth your time even if it's small.

[drpino]

i was given this thing (Check-Go) as a present one holiday season. supposed to spin balls at a high rate to find the "equator"...haven't really noticed much difference between balls i've marked (only a handful) and balls i haven't and that i just use the logo to line up putts. teeing up according to the equator is supposed to help too...

 

oh well, i'd rather practice than sit and watch balls spin at a high rate with a marker in my hand...but that's just me.

[The Boom Bapp]

The technology of balls today are far more advanced than the balls of old but no matter how close the ball manufacturers get to mass producing perfectly "balanced" balls, we may never see a golf ball that is truly 100% balanced.

 

The pills we use today are a lot closer to that level of perfection then 10 years ago so I would say we are lucky.

 

The only fun I got out of the wound balls was giving them to my Pit Bull to chew on, the closer he got to the core the funnier it became due to the dogs reaction as the rubber bands pelted his face and he grew more and more aggravated that the ball was getting the better of him.

 

 

 

3-Piece out!

[profsanjo]

regular salt also works to balance balls, you just have to put a lot of it into the water, but a whole package is very cheap so it doesn't matter