How to choose the golf ball best suited to you?

How to choose the golf ball best suited to you?

Many technological advances have occurred in the game of golf over the years, but perhaps nothing has changed more than the golf ball. It’s no coincidence that the United States Golf Association (USGA) and Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R&A) keep a tight rein on just how far a ball can go nowadays. If the associations didn’t provide regulations, almost every golf course on the planet would be reduced to a pitch and putt. We’d all be putting through windmills just to keep the scores up in the 50s.

For the record, here are the specifications the USGA imposes on Titleist, Maxfli, and the rest of the ball manufacturers:

Size: A golf ball may not be smaller than 1.68 inches in diameter. The ball can be as big as you want, however. Just don’t expect a bigger ball to go farther — it won’t. I’ve never seen anyone use a ball bigger than 1.68 inches in diameter.
Weight: The golf ball may not be heavier than 1.62 ounces.
Velocity: The USGA has a machine for measuring how fast a ball comes off the face of a club. That’s not easy, because impact lasts only 450 millionths of a second, and a good ball can zoom off at more than 170 miles an hour.

No legal ball may exceed an initial velocity of 250 feet per second at a temperature between 73 and 77 degrees. A tolerance of no more than 2 percent is allowed, which means an absolute max of 255 feet per second. This rule ensures that golf balls don’t go too far.
Distance: Distance is the most important factor. For years the standard was the USGA’s “Iron Byron” robot (named for sweet-swingin’ Byron Nelson). No ball struck by Iron Byron could go farther than 280 yards. A tolerance of 6 percent was allowed, making 296.8 yards the absolute farthest the ball could go. Today the robot has some help from high-tech ball launchers in the USGA labs, and the upper limit has risen to 317 yards.

Yeah, right. Iron Byron, meet the PGA Tour! Guys like Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, and their buddies just aren’t normal — they regularly blast drives way past 350 yards!
Shape: A golf ball must be round. An anti-slice ball on the market a few years ago was weighted on one side and failed this test. Nice try, though!

Even with these regulations, take a look around any golf professional’s shop and you’ll see many different brands. And upon closer inspection, you’ll find that every type of ball falls into one of two categories: Either the manufacturer is claiming that this ball goes farther and straighter than any other ball in the cosmos, or it’s telling you that this ball gives you more control.

Try not to get overwhelmed. Keep in mind that golf balls come in only three basic types: one-piece, two-piece, and three-piece. You can forget one-piece balls — they tend to be cheap and nasty and found only on driving ranges. So that leaves two-piece and three-piece balls.

Don’t worry; deciding on a type of ball is still easy. You don’t even have to know what a two-piece or three-piece ball contains or why it has that many “pieces.” Leave all that to the scientists. And don’t worry too much about launch angle or spin rate, either. Today’s balls are technological marvels, designed to take off high and spin just enough to go as straight as possible.

Go with a two-piece ball. I wouldn’t recommend a three-piece ball to a beginning golfer. Tour pros and expert players use such balls to maximize control. For many years, the best players used balls with covers made of balata, a soft, rubbery substance. Today, many high-performance three-piece balls have covers of something even better — high-performance urethane elastomer, which is a fancy way of saying “expensive superplastic.” But you don’t need that stuff. As a beginner, you need a reliable, durable ball. Unless you have very deep pockets and more cash than Bill Gates, go the surlyn, two-piece route.Most amateurs with double-digit handicaps use this type of ball. A surlyn-covered ball’s harder cover and lower spin rate give you less feel — which is why better players tend not to use them — but, assuming that you don’t whack them off the premises, they last longer. They just might roll farther, too.

Golf balls used to come in three compressions: 80, 90, or 100. The 80- compression ball was the softest, and the 100 the hardest. When I was growing up, I thought that the harder the ball (100 compression), the farther it would go. Not the case. All balls go far when hit properly, but each one feels a little different. How hard or soft you want the ball to feel has to do with your personal preference. These days, you needn’t worry about compression. It’s no longer such a big deal. Just determine whether you like a harder or softer feel, and swing away.

Take all the commercial hype with a grain of salt. Make that a handful. The most important things you need to know when buying golf balls are your own game, your own tendencies, and your own needs. Your local PGA professional can help you choose the golf ball best suited to you.

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