As we talked about at the beginning of our 2023 Golf Ball Take a look at report, the golf ball issues.

It’s the one piece of kit you employ on each shot and that might make it the only most essential piece of kit in your bag.

That mentioned, it’s not misplaced on us that variations in golf ball efficiency can generally be tough to discern. Given the challenges of deciphering ball efficiency in regular circumstances, we don’t think about many golfers have given a lot thought to how efficiency adjustments when moisture is launched into the equation.

No worries. We’ve bought you coated.

As a part of our 2023 Golf Ball Take a look at, we had the chance to check golf ball efficiency on full wedge pictures in dry and moist circumstances.

The outcomes could trigger you to rethink your golf ball alternative.

Desk of Contents

Beneath you’ll discover we’ve damaged this text into sections. Be happy to skip forward or scroll on to be taught extra about that take a look at, methodology and key findings.

Take a look at Location

Testing for the moist/dry wedge portion of the 2023 Ball Take a look at was performed with the Cool Golf equipment group at SunRidge Canyon Golf Membership in Fountain Hills, Ariz.

Concerning the Golf Ball Fashions Examined

The balls examined embody retail urethane choices from main producers and a mixture of smaller direct-to-consumer (DTC) and home manufacturers. We additionally examined just a few standard two-piece ionomer choices.

When potential, MyGolfSpy bought the balls we examined at retail and from a number of retailers. Exceptions embody the Not Your Ball and Inesis Tour 900 Prototype.

Environmental Circumstances

The moist/dry portion of the take a look at was performed indoors. As such, environmental circumstances weren’t a big issue within the outcomes.

Take a look at Course of

For this portion of our take a look at, the robotic hit a sequence of pictures with every mannequin in a dry situation. A second sequence was hit by which balls have been sprayed with water. Each effort was made to be in line with the applying of water.

Photographs have been hit with 56-degree Vokey SM9 wedge.

Outlier Removing

As with the total take a look at, outliers have been eliminated utilizing the 1.5 IQR rule. Outliers for the moist/dry wedge take a look at have been filtered based mostly on launch angle and spin charges.

Key Findings

Water Adjustments Issues

When moisture was utilized to the quilt, each ball within the take a look at launched increased and produced decrease spin charges.

It’s affordable to surmise that variations in moist/dry efficiency are associated to friction misplaced when moisture is added.

As loft decreases and friction turns into a lesser a part of the equation, we’d count on the variations to be much less pronounced.

The Cowl Issues

For balls with similar covers, we didn’t discover vital variations within the share of spin misplaced when the ball is moist. That mentioned, the information collected strongly suggests some covers do a greater job of preserving spin in moist circumstances than others.

Ionomer Spins Much less

This shouldn’t come as a shock however balls with less-expensive ionomer covers produce much less spin in any situation.

Yellow Balls May Carry out In a different way

When trying on the moist/dry knowledge, we will confidently say there’s a distinction between the white and yellow model of the Professional V1. It might be attention-grabbing to see if the outcomes are related with different producers.

Different Issues to Know

The dry spin charges are a bit increased than most we see in the true world. A excessive swing pace paired with an ideal robotic strike resulted in excessive spin charges. That mentioned, relative spin charges between balls – in the end the main target of this take a look at – ought to maintain constant.

Highest-Spinning Balls – Dry

The best-spinning balls have been the PXG Xtreme and the Wilson Workers Mannequin adopted by Inesis Tour 900, Kirkland Signature Efficiency+ V3 and the Maxfli Tour X.

Provided that golf ball efficiency of irons and full wedges is extra related than totally different, it’s not stunning that the checklist of highest-spinning balls is analogous, although not similar.

On the low finish of the spin spectrum, you’ll be able to see the deficiencies of ionomer as three of the underside 5 – Not Your Ball, Wilson DUO Smooth and Callaway Supersoft – are ionomer-covered.

Lowest-Spinning Balls – Dry

The surprises on checklist of low-spinning balls off the wedge embody the Volvik Tour VS4 (one among higher-spinning balls off irons) and the Snell MTB Prime X which additionally produced decrease than anticipated spin charges for a tour-level ball.

Highest-Spinning Balls – Moist

As we talked about, moisture can have a big overlap on efficiency. So whereas there’s some overlap in our Prime 10 lists, we additionally see new balls enter the dialog when moisture is launched.

The best-spinning balls in moist circumstances embody the Bridgestone TOUR B X, Seed SD-02, Inesis Tour 900, PXG Xtreme and the Inesis Tour 900 Proto.

We’d be remiss to not point out that every one 4 Srixon balls seem among the many Prime 10 in moist spin efficiency.

Lowest-Spinning Balls – Moist

The checklist of lowest-spinning moist balls is much like what we noticed in our dry checklist. You’ll discover the three ionomer balls together with the Volvik Tour VS4, Titleist Tour Velocity and Snell MTB Prime X because the lowest-spinning urethane balls.

Moist Versus Dry – Greatest Spin Retention

No matter your most spin fee, ideally you need it to be as constant as potential. Whereas spin loss is unavoidable in moist circumstances, some balls are inarguably higher at retaining spin than others.

On this part we spotlight the balls that misplaced the least spin in moist circumstances.

Greatest Spin Retention (Smallest p.c distinction in spin charges)

The Seed SD-02 misplaced the least quantity of spin when moisture was added adopted carefully by the Bridgestone TOUR B X.

In a state of affairs that jogs my memory of Tracy Chapman’s Quick Automobile (“ranging from zero, bought nothing to lose”), the Not Your Ball was among the many greatest at retaining spin.

The PXG Xtreme, one of many highest-spinning in dry circumstances, was additionally within the Prime 10 for moist spin preservation.

Three Srixon balls seem within the Prime 10 for spin preservation. Expanded to the Prime 15, the checklist consists of the fourth Srixon ball (Z-Star XV) together with the Titleist Professional V1 and Professional V1x.

Moist Versus Dry – Worst Spin Distinction

When moisture is launched, the balls that undergo essentially the most vital spin degradation are the Callaway Supersoft, Titleist Tour Velocity, Volvik Tour VS4 and VICE Professional Zero.

Supersoft spin charges modified by greater than 63 p.c whereas Tour Velocity, VS4 and Professional Zero all noticed spin decreases of greater than 55 p.c relative to dry.

Wanting on the backside half of the chart, you’ll discover all the urethane choices from Callaway and TaylorMade together with Foremost-made balls from Maxfli, VICE and OnCore.

Concerning the Professional V1 Yellow

The information suggests variations within the moist/dry efficiency between the white and yellow variations of the Titleist Professional V1.

By the numbers, the yellow spun much less beneath dry circumstances however not by a statistically vital margin.

In moist circumstances, issues get notably attention-grabbing.

When moisture was added, the Professional V1 yellow spun 700 rpm much less on common than the inventory white ball. For extra context, beneath moist take a look at circumstances, the highest-spinning Professional V1 yellow spun lower than the lowest-spinning white. There was no overlap within the knowledge.

Can the paint coloration actually matter?

Golfers seemingly consider paint as simply coloration however, within the golf ball world, paint is chemistry and that might assist to clarify the variations.

For years, there was chatter that yellow balls from different producers spin lower than white ones. Primarily based on what we’ve seen with the Professional V1 (and in our first ball take a look at with the yellow Z-Star), it may very well be price a deeper dive throughout OEM lineups to see how a lot of a distinction there actually is..

The Information

We’ve targeted our dialog on spin efficiency however we needed to provide the capacity to cycle by a collection of metrics to achieve a greater understanding of how moisture impacts different points of golf ball efficiency.

We encourage you to search for no matter you would possibly discover attention-grabbing, after all, however listed here are some strategies:

• When moisture is added, along with drops in spin charges, the lack of friction inevitably creates increased launch angles.
• As with spin, some balls do a greater job than others of minimizing launch angle adjustments than others.
• The perfect ball at preserving launch angle (Not Your Ball) sees solely an eight-percent improve in launch angle whereas the worst are almost 30-percent increased when water is added.
• As friction is a part of the compression story and compression correlates with ball pace, you’ll discover notable adjustments in ball pace when moisture is added.
• The perfect performers in moist circumstances lose lower than one mile per hour of ball pace (lower than one p.c) whereas the worst lose over 4 mph (greater than a 4.5-percent distinction).
• Lastly, it’s attention-grabbing to see how these adjustments impression the carry distance equation. There aren’t any absolutes right here. Some balls misplaced between 4 and 5 yards whereas just a few really gained distance.  

Charts

We’ve tried to place as a lot knowledge as we will into a wise quantity of actual property. With that, the 2 charts beneath are greatest seen on cell.

Right here’s what that you must know.

• You the Select Metric dropdown to select from the checklist of obtainable metrics.
• You may as well filter ball Producer (OEM) and Ball Mannequin.
• The chart is sortable by Dry Rating, Moist Rating, % Change or the deference between the moist and dry values.
• You select to indicate the Prime x, Backside x, Center X or ALL the place x= the worth within the Present X field.

Different issues to concentrate on:

• The broader (blue) bars are at all times the information for pictures hit within the dry situation.
• The narrrow (grey) bars are at all times the information from pictures hit within the moist situation.
• The crimson bars on the backside present the p.c change from dry to moist.
• We’ve additionally included the numerical distinction between the dry and moist values.

We’ve realized that the charts won’t load in case your browser is in incognito mode.

You’ll both want to regulate your safety settings, or view the charts on the tableau website by utilizing the header hyperlinks above every chart.

Golf Ball Efficiency – Moist vs Dry Efficiency (Bar Chart)

Golf Ball Efficiency – Moist vs. Dry (Crosstab)

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