Forum Opportunity Titleist Tour Soft Golf Balls

adasko

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Oct 24, 2015
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Just back from a really good day.
Spent more time in the car than on the course though!
Good to meet Adam, who can hit a mean ball for a 16 capper, Make, who's much better than his 10, photographer Chris and a cameo from the Commander-in-Chief who was there on other business.
Thanks to GM and Titleist for the opportunity. Plenty of pics and video
West Hill was superb, really smooth and receptive greens ( not tined!!) and we didn't have a drop of rain but it was muggy all then way round.
The golf was a mix of the sublime and the ridiculous from all of us. I had many a 1 point hole due to Brazilian putts but scraped to 28 points. Adam had a disastrous start but played better when he stopped scoring and Jake played some great golf followed by some, how shall! I put this, not so great golf..

Onto the balls...
Well, the Tour Soft is a good ball. We've been using them for a couple of weeks and I played 4 rounds alternating between the Tour Soft, Chromesoft, ProV1 and other balls like Soft Feel, NXT Tour etc etc..
Off the driver - I doubt many would be able to tell the difference between any of the above..same for most full shots. It's soft feeling and as long as anything else. I didn't sense any real difference in height or feel.
Performance was respectable on the receptive greens. One thing we all found was that the TS lacked real spin. During previous rounds, a shot played with a 7 iron pitched on a green and ran out some 27 yards....a ProV1 played next stopped within 3 yards.
This lack of spin can actually help some players, especially those that always seem to come up short on approaches. The extra release will get you closer to the hole than a ProV in then same scenario.
Chips and pitches suffered from the same lack of spin, although not as much on softer greens - again, the lower spin runs the ball further, potentially getting you closer.
Putting wasn't particularly an issue. It's soft and goes where you hit it. Too soft for some possibly.

All in all, the general consensus was that the Tour Soft is a decent all-rounder with good feel and distance. For those that like a high spinning ball, it would make a good alternative on soft greens where a premium ball could spin too much.
I think it's biggest problem is its place in the market. It's not, obviously, as good as a premium ball. For me, it's not better than a Chromesoft due to the lower spin. It's better than the AD333/Soft Feel/DX2 etc but not by much. But if Titleist put a urethane cover on it instead of the surlyn one, it would likely bring the performance too close to the ProV1. To get the price around £30 a dozen they need the surlyn cover and that drops the performance close to the other balls in the market - and many of them are cheaper.
It's a good ball. If you use it and can adjust to the extra roll you're going to get then you won't be disappointed.
It was great day, big thanks to Jake and Golf Monthly for organising the day. Ian pretty much summed up what we both felt about the ball.
 
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