Oddsocks
Ryder Cup Winner
Like many others after using Prov1's & having tried Penta's but simply hating the price, we all look for a lower price high end ball. At the start of the year I'd found a couple of DX2's which are 2 piece and really liked the feel of these.
I found the DX2's control into greens was really good and off the putter was a main key point that really hooked me on these but the only downside to me was the fact that grazed/scuffed quite easily.
For the last few weeks I’ve been using Taylor Made TP Burners and generally really struggled to get these to stop on fast greens so decided to give the DX3 a run. According to the spec's its a 3 piece ball with the same feel as the DX2 but with extra spin (which I was think should help on these hard fast greens we have at the moment)
On Saturday we played Woldingham in the morning and then onto Westerham in the afternoon so this was an ideal day to give the DX3 a good all round test. I’m going to add here that Woldingham had been subject to around 2 hours of heavy early morning rain from 5.30-7am and the greens were absolutely perfect. Around an inch and a half of soft on the top with underneath nice and firm, you may argue that this is a slightly unfair test compared with current conditions that I have been playing with rock hard greens, but we was moving on to Westerham in the afternoon which hadn’t had the rain and after a warm morning was going to have the more recent conditions of firmer fast greens.
Woldingham (after rain and slightly soft)
After a few puts on the practice green it was hard to tell the difference between these and the Prov1 (which I did try back to back). Both felt soft and controllable with good feedback. I found less putts were finished short or long, generally more consistent when judging putt power needed. They seemed on par when putting against a prov1 but both DX3 and Prov1 were a lot better with the putter than the TP Burners.
Driving:
My drives suffered no distance loss at all compared with both prov1's and TP Burners. The ball behaved very well. No drives seemed to react out of the ordinary compared with the other 2 balls in fact id go as far to say that this ball behaved a bit better with only 1 really extreme drive (no hip turn so it was doomed anyway). If you hit a ball bad you know you have hit a ball bad, but good drives were good drives with nice flight and a good controlled draw which is my normal game shape. I found the flight no different to that of the prov1.
Irons,
I don’t tend to have a game which forces the use of longer irons shots from say 3-5i, most of my game seems to end up driver/3w/hybrid off the tee with then 7i down as an approach. Mid iron control on these was awesome, a struck 6i/7i gave massive grin factors as you could tell when you had really nailed the ball. From 7i down I noticed I could really attack the pin and was getting pretty much hop skip stop through all of Woldinghams greens in the morning which was the first round. As stated above Woldingham had had very heavy recent rain so the real test into the greens was going to come from Westerham in the afternoon.
Onto Westerham in the summer afternoon sun.
Into the first green which was hard and dry I was still playing as if I was at Woldingham and the ball didn’t check to well into the green. I was playing my approach in from under a tree on the left so a hard punch didn’t give the ball much chance of stopping. After a chip on two putts I was assured green pace and firmness were chalk and cheese compared with what we had playing in the morning. The greens here was a lot faster and harder, which was great as this is what I had been used too.
Like the morning the Long, Mid & Short game were fine, the only adjustment I had to make was instead of attacking the pin, I was more of attacking the front of the green (if the pin was in the middle to back) or middle (if the pin was at the back). At Westerham the greens were still firm in the afternoon (prior to the rain that kicked in on the 13th).
Overall I’m 100% impressed with this ball and after keeping the same ball for 36 holes across 2 different courses I think I could gauge the wear quite well. The ball after 36 holes was a bit scuffy, but then towards the end of the day the swing gave the ball some abuse it didn’t deserve. For me im hooked. DX3 all the way.
I got them off ebay for 32.00 for 2 dozen, £16.00 per box was a bargin I think. The ebay shop was as listed below.
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/ian-reads
I found the DX2's control into greens was really good and off the putter was a main key point that really hooked me on these but the only downside to me was the fact that grazed/scuffed quite easily.
For the last few weeks I’ve been using Taylor Made TP Burners and generally really struggled to get these to stop on fast greens so decided to give the DX3 a run. According to the spec's its a 3 piece ball with the same feel as the DX2 but with extra spin (which I was think should help on these hard fast greens we have at the moment)
On Saturday we played Woldingham in the morning and then onto Westerham in the afternoon so this was an ideal day to give the DX3 a good all round test. I’m going to add here that Woldingham had been subject to around 2 hours of heavy early morning rain from 5.30-7am and the greens were absolutely perfect. Around an inch and a half of soft on the top with underneath nice and firm, you may argue that this is a slightly unfair test compared with current conditions that I have been playing with rock hard greens, but we was moving on to Westerham in the afternoon which hadn’t had the rain and after a warm morning was going to have the more recent conditions of firmer fast greens.
Woldingham (after rain and slightly soft)
After a few puts on the practice green it was hard to tell the difference between these and the Prov1 (which I did try back to back). Both felt soft and controllable with good feedback. I found less putts were finished short or long, generally more consistent when judging putt power needed. They seemed on par when putting against a prov1 but both DX3 and Prov1 were a lot better with the putter than the TP Burners.
Driving:
My drives suffered no distance loss at all compared with both prov1's and TP Burners. The ball behaved very well. No drives seemed to react out of the ordinary compared with the other 2 balls in fact id go as far to say that this ball behaved a bit better with only 1 really extreme drive (no hip turn so it was doomed anyway). If you hit a ball bad you know you have hit a ball bad, but good drives were good drives with nice flight and a good controlled draw which is my normal game shape. I found the flight no different to that of the prov1.
Irons,
I don’t tend to have a game which forces the use of longer irons shots from say 3-5i, most of my game seems to end up driver/3w/hybrid off the tee with then 7i down as an approach. Mid iron control on these was awesome, a struck 6i/7i gave massive grin factors as you could tell when you had really nailed the ball. From 7i down I noticed I could really attack the pin and was getting pretty much hop skip stop through all of Woldinghams greens in the morning which was the first round. As stated above Woldingham had had very heavy recent rain so the real test into the greens was going to come from Westerham in the afternoon.
Onto Westerham in the summer afternoon sun.
Into the first green which was hard and dry I was still playing as if I was at Woldingham and the ball didn’t check to well into the green. I was playing my approach in from under a tree on the left so a hard punch didn’t give the ball much chance of stopping. After a chip on two putts I was assured green pace and firmness were chalk and cheese compared with what we had playing in the morning. The greens here was a lot faster and harder, which was great as this is what I had been used too.
Like the morning the Long, Mid & Short game were fine, the only adjustment I had to make was instead of attacking the pin, I was more of attacking the front of the green (if the pin was in the middle to back) or middle (if the pin was at the back). At Westerham the greens were still firm in the afternoon (prior to the rain that kicked in on the 13th).
Overall I’m 100% impressed with this ball and after keeping the same ball for 36 holes across 2 different courses I think I could gauge the wear quite well. The ball after 36 holes was a bit scuffy, but then towards the end of the day the swing gave the ball some abuse it didn’t deserve. For me im hooked. DX3 all the way.
I got them off ebay for 32.00 for 2 dozen, £16.00 per box was a bargin I think. The ebay shop was as listed below.
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/ian-reads
