why you cant trust those battered range balls.

[garyinderry]

Interesting video here. Shows that if you are using battered range balls, you cannot completely trust the flight it gives you.


[video=youtube;aeibKavgytc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeibKavgytc[/video]

 

[PJ87]

Same surely applies to lake balls.. sitting at bottom of lake you have no idea what affect this has

 

[Face breaker]

So it's 'not' me then, it's the ball 'woohoo' looks like I'll be on the lookout for lost 'proV1x' in the future then, always tossed them aside in favour of 'Srixon soft feel' as I'm not that keen on the feel of them off of the club face, interesting... :thup:

 

[Orikoru]

To be honest I never pay much attention to the distance on the range. I'm mainly just trying to get good contact on the face. And avoid bad slices or hooks.

 

[Face breaker]

To be honest I never pay much attention to the distance on the range. I'm mainly just trying to get good contact on the face. And avoid bad slices or hooks.

If the video is true to its word though then you gotta wonder if that bad slice you're on about is indeed down to you... :smirk:

 

[patricks148]

only time i ever hit range balls is in lessons and most of the time the direction is irrelevant as its the swing path and strike we work on.

some of the ones at the driving range are real gravity defying marvels...

 

[Maninblack4612]

Same surely applies to lake balls.. sitting at bottom of lake you have no idea what affect this has

The material of the cover is so inert that I cannot imagine that being in fresh water for a few weeks would have any effect whatsoever. A few years, perhaps but not the length of time a lake ball is normally in the water.

I used to use use lake balls a lot & never had a problem with one.

As for range balls, I find that they fly higher & emphasize any faults that you have which, in a way, is a good thing.

 

[cliveb]

At first sight it seems alarming, but...

The experiment was contrived. The balls had been deliberately manufactured with different dimple depths carefully positioned on either side, and then marked with arrows so that they could be teed up to best demonstrate the effect.

In practice, a battered ball will not be battered in such a neat way - the damage will be randomly distributed. And even if the battering was asymmetric, the chances that you'll tee it up so that the asymmetry coincides with the line of flight is remote. So in a real world situation, you'll not get anything like the effect shown in the video.

In other words: when you slice or hook, it really is overwhelmingly likely that it's your fault, not the ball's.

 

[SaintHacker]

The material of the cover is so inert that I cannot imagine that being in fresh water for a few weeks would have any effect whatsoever. A few years, perhaps but not the length of time a lake ball is normally in the water.

I used to use use lake balls a lot & never had a problem with one.

As for range balls, I find that they fly higher & emphasize any faults that you have which, in a way, is a good thing.

I agree. This is a thing that survives lots of hits by a piece of metal travelling at close to 100mph. Unless it has a hole in it a bit of water is going to have no effect on it at all.

 

[Orikoru]

If the video is true to its word though then you gotta wonder if that bad slice you're on about is indeed down to you... :smirk:

Well, if it's one bad one isolated you can write it off. If you hit 5 slices in a row you can probably stop blaming the balls...

 

[garyinderry]

A point I would make about battered range balls is they may not be great for practising distance control.

Due to their battered nature and damaged dimples, two shots struck well and with the same club head speed may indeed fly two very different distances.


Ive hit some really poor range balls over the years in various places and some of the flights are crazy. They just don't get the spin and don't stay in the air. Very weird to watch.


Not that it matters all that much as we are not playing the game for a living but certainly some food for thought the next time you are at the range.

I will post a pic of unbelievably battered ball I found at a range in Liverpool. There was a few there but I kept this shocker because it was so bad.

 

[Orikoru]

A point I would make about battered range balls is they may not be great for practising distance control.

Due to their battered nature and damaged dimples, two shots struck well and with the same club head speed may indeed fly two very different distances.


Ive hit some really poor range balls over the years in various places and some of the flights are crazy. They just don't get the spin and don't stay in the air. Very weird to watch.


Not that it matters all that much as we are not playing the game for a living but certainly some food for thought the next time you are at the range.

I will post a pic of unbelievably battered ball I found at a range in Liverpool. There was a few there but I kept this shocker because it was so bad.

Yeah, agreed, this is why I pay no attention to distance at the range as I mentioned earlier. When my nearest range shut down I tried out the next nearest one in Bushey. Some of the balls there were so bad it was like whacking a sponge. As you say, some of them would just drop out of the sky like a stone after 100-odd yards, as if they'd been shot down! I stopped going there as the balls were so bad and inconsistent that it felt like I had no idea how good/bad my shots were. I now go to a larger golf centre in Northwick Park as they have the more standard Srixon range balls that the slightly bigger places tend to have, and they're usually ok. (Still don't really take notice of the distance though.)

 

[patricks148]

The range at my club bought a load of decent ish pinnacle balls this year (not your standard range ball anyway) trouble is all the seniors couldn't help themselves and most have gone missing... i say missing they are lost all over the course

 

[User62651]

To be honest I never pay much attention to the distance on the range. I'm mainly just trying to get good contact on the face. And avoid bad slices or hooks.

Pretty sure you should always have a clear target when practicing, so that means line and distance, that's the way the brain works. Pre shot routines need a specific target to be effective and brain to focus correctly. Or so I'm told.

 

[Orikoru]

Pretty sure you should always have a clear target when practicing, so that means line and distance, that's the way the brain works. Pre shot routines need a specific target to be effective and brain to focus correctly. Or so I'm told.

In that case the range is useless then. The whole point of this thread is how we can't trust the range balls to go the same distance as your shots out on the course would, so if you're trying to practise distance there's no point going to the range.

 

[Coffey]

In that case the range is useless then. The whole point of this thread is how we can't trust the range balls to go the same distance as your shots out on the course would, so if you're trying to practise distance there's no point going to the range.

You should have an idea of how far you hit each of your clubs at the range and at the course. For example, on the course i hit my 7 about 160 carry, yet at the range, it goes about 150. At the range I am not focusing on increasing distance, but i am taking that a good 7 iron is going about 150 and i will judge that. If it goes less, it may be down to the ball, but I inspect each ball before I hit it. So if the ball is battered, i wont expect it to behave normally. (And by inspect, i just look at the dimples from my stance, i don't closely inspect every single dimple!)

What this thread is about, is that a battered range ball will not give the same flight due to the lack of dimples. Good quality range balls should be consistent, but they wont go as far as a normal ball.

 

[IanM]

The range at my club bought a load of decent ish pinnacle balls this year (not your standard range ball anyway) trouble is all the seniors couldn't help themselves and most have gone missing... i say missing they are lost all over the course

..,.so legally not stolen as still "on the premises!"

 

[Jamesbrown]

I was interested until I saw it was a Titleist video.
I love the brand. But would prefer an independent test to sway me away from lakeballs.